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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Uller Uprising, by
+Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Uller Uprising
+
+Author: Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
+
+Release Date: January 21, 2007 [EBook #19474]
+[Original Release Date: October 5, 2006]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ULLER UPRISING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         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 the
+original hardcover edition. It has been completely reset in a typeface
+designed for easy reading, and was printed from new film.
+
+PRINTING HISTORY
+Twayne edition/ 1952
+Ace edition/ June 1983
+
+Copyright © 1952 by Twayne Publishers, Inc.
+Copyright © renewed 1983 by Charter Communications, Inc.
+Introduction © 1952, 1983 by Dr. John D. Clark
+New Introduction © 1983 by John F. Carr
+Cover art by Gino D'Achille
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Introduction to
+
+_ULLER UPRISING_
+
+by John F. Carr
+
+
+With the publication of this novel, _Uller Uprising_, all of H. Beam
+Piper's previously published science fiction is now available in Ace
+editions. _Uller Uprising_ was first published in 1952 in a Twayne
+Science Fiction Triplet--a hardbound collection of three thematically
+connected novels. (The other two were Judith Merril's _Daughters of
+Earth_ and Fletcher Pratt's _The Long View_.) A year later it appeared
+in the February and March issues of _Space Science Fiction_, edited by
+Lester Del Rey.
+
+The magazine version, which was abridged by about a third, was
+believed by many bibliographers to be the only version--and as a
+novella it was too short for book publication. The Twayne version had
+a small print run and is so scarce that few people have seen it. Those
+bibliographers who knew of its existence assumed that both versions of
+_Uller_ were the same. It was through a telephone conversation with
+Charles N. Brown, publisher of _Locus_ and correspondent with Piper,
+that I learned about the Twayne edition and its greater length. Brown
+allowed me to photocopy his original, for which we owe him a debt of
+thanks; because the Twayne version is not only novel length, but far
+better than the shorter one that appeared in _Space Science Fiction_.
+
+Probably the most surprising and interesting thing about the Twayne
+edition is the essay that forms the introduction to that volume, and
+is reprinted here. The essay is by Dr. John D. Clark, an eminent
+scientist of the fourties and fifties and one of the discoverers of
+sulfa, the first "miracle drug." It describes in great detail the
+planetary system of the star Beta Hydri, and gives the names of those
+planets: Uller and Niflheim. A publisher's note states that Clark's
+essay was written first, and given to the contributors as background
+material 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 monumental
+Terro-Human Future History; the first story where we encounter the
+Terran Federation. In it we learn about Odin, the planet that will one
+day be the capital of the First Galactic Empire; and humble Niflheim,
+which in more decadent times will become a common expletive, a word
+meaning hell. This is also where Piper introduced and explained the
+Atomic Era dating system (A.E.). _Uller Uprising_ is set in the early
+years of the Terran Federation's expansion and exploration, an epoch
+of great vitality. In "The Edge of the Knife" Piper compares this time
+of discovery to the Spanish conquest of the Americas. This feeling of
+vigor and unlimited possibilities runs through all the early
+Federation stories: _Uller Uprising_, "Omnilingual," "Naudsonce,"
+"When in the Course--," and, to a lesser degree, in the late
+Federation novels, _Little Fuzzy_, _Fuzzy Sapiens_, and _Fuzzies and
+Other People_. (See _Federation_ by H. Beam Piper for a good overview
+of 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 _Uller
+Uprising_; Federation law and justice in _Little Fuzzy_ and its
+sequels; and, in "Omnilingual" and "Naudsonce," the spirit of science
+and rational inquiry. Yet we also see colonial exploitation and
+subjugation in _Uller Uprising_ and "Oomphel in the Sky," the greed
+and corruption of Chartered land companies in _Little Fuzzy_, and
+political corruption in _Four-Day Planet_. These stories are about a
+living Terro-Human culture, not a utopia.
+
+It was Piper's attention to historical realism and his use of actual
+historical models that have helped his work to pass the test of time
+and have led to his becoming the favorite of a new generation of
+readers more than twenty-five years after his death.
+
+_Uller Uprising_ is the story of a confrontation between a human
+overlord and alien servants, with an ironic twist at the end. Like
+most of Piper's best work, _Uller Uprising_ is modeled after an actual
+event in human history; in this case the Sepoy Mutiny (a Bengal
+uprising in British-held India brought about when rumors were spread
+to native soldiers that cartridges being issued by the British were
+coated with animal fat. The rebellion quickly spread throughout India
+and led to the massacre of the British Colony at Cawnpore.). Piper's
+novel is not a mere retelling of the Indian Mutiny, but rather an
+analysis of an historical event applied to a similar situation in the
+far future.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Like many philosophers and social theorists before him, Piper
+attempted to chart the progress of human-kind; unlike most, however,
+he did not envision or try to create a system of ethics that would end
+all of humanity's problems. The best he could offer was his model of
+the self-reliant man: The man who "actually knows what has to be done
+and how to do it, and he's going to go right ahead and do it, without
+holding a dozen conferences and round-table discussions and giving
+everybody a fair and equal chance to foul things up for him."
+
+Piper brought his own ideas and judgments about society and history
+into all of his work, but they appear most clearly in his Terro-Human
+Future History. While not everyone will agree with Piper's theories
+they give his work a bite that most popular fiction lacks. One cannot
+read Piper complacently. And one can often find a wry insight
+sandwiched in between the blood and thunder.
+
+Other future histories may span more centuries or better illuminate
+the highlights of several decades, but until a rival is created with
+more historical depth and attention to detail, H. Beam Piper's
+Terro-Human Future History will stand as the Bayeux Tapestry of
+science fiction histories.
+
+In many ways--certainly during his lifetime--Piper was the most
+underrated of the John W. Campbell's "Astounding" writers. He was
+probably also the most Campbellian; his _self-reliant man_ is almost a
+mirror image of Campbell's "Citizen."
+
+Piper died a bitter man, a failure in his own mind; shortly before his
+death he believed he could no longer earn a living as a writer without
+charity from his friends or the state.
+
+Now he's the cornerstone of Ace Books. Had he lived long enough to
+finish another half dozen books, he would have been among the sf
+greats of the sixties....
+
+But maybe he does know, after all. Jerry Pournelle, who was very much
+influenced by Piper and in many ways considers himself Beam's
+spiritual descendant--and incidently was John W. Campbell's last major
+_discovery_--has said that sometimes, when he's gotten down a
+particularly 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 was
+developed, the names of Greek Gods had been used up, so those of Norse
+gods were used). It is the second planet of the star Beta Hydri, right
+angle 0:23, declension-77:32, G-0 (solar) type star, of approximately
+the same size as Sol; distance from Earth, 21 light years.
+
+Uller revolves around it in a nearly circular orbit, at a distance of
+100,000,000 miles, making it a little colder than Earth. A year is of
+the 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 a
+certain time of the year the north pole is pointed directly at the
+sun, while at the opposite end of the orbit it points directly away.
+The result is highly exaggerated seasons. At the poles the temperature
+runs from 120°C to a low of-80°C. At the equator it remains not far
+from 10°C all year round. Strong winds blow during the summer and
+winter, from the hot to the cold pole; few winds during the spring and
+fall. The appearance of the poles varies during the year from baked
+deserts to glaciers covered with solid CO_{2}. Free water exists in
+the 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 to
+July 1, it continues swinging around, gradually rising in the sky, the
+spiral converging to its center at the zenith, which it reaches July
+1. From July 1 to October 1 the spiral starts again, spreading out
+from the center until on October 1 it bisects the horizon again. On
+October 1 night arrives to stay until April 1.
+
+At the equator, the sun is visible bisecting the southern horizon for
+all 26 hours of the day on January 1. From January 1 to April 1, the
+sun starts to dip below the horizon at night, to rise higher above it
+during the day. During all this time it rises and sets at the same
+hours, but rises in the southeast and sets in the southwest. At noon
+it is higher each day in the southern sky until April 1, when it rises
+due east, passes through the zenith and sets due west. From April 1 to
+July 1, its noon position drops down to the north, until on July 1, it
+is visible all day, bisected by the northern horizon.
+
+
+3. CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY OF ULLER
+
+Calcium and chlorine are rarer than on earth, sodium is somewhat
+commoner. As a result of the shortage of calcium there is a higher
+ration of silicates to carbonates than exists on earth. The water is
+slightly alkaline and resembles a very dilute solution of sodium
+silicate (water glass). It would have a pH of 8.5 and tastes slightly
+soapy. Also, when it dries out it leaves a sticky, and then a glassy,
+crackly film. Rocks look fairly earthlike, but the absence or scarcity
+of anything like limestone is noticeable. Practically all the
+sedimentary rocks are of the sandstone type.
+
+All rivers are seasonal, running from the polar regions to the central
+seas in the spring only, or until the polar cap is completely dried
+out.
+
+
+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 tendency
+for the microscopic organisms to develop silicate exoskeletons, like
+diatoms. The present invertebrate animal life of the planet is of this
+type and is confined to the equatorial seas. They run from amoeba-like
+objects to things like crayfish, with silicate skeletons. Later, some
+species of them started taking silicone into their soft tissues, and
+eventually their carbon-chain compounds were converted to silicone
+type chains, from
+
+  |  |  |         |   |  |   |  |
+--C--C--C-- to O--Si--O--Si--O--Si,
+  |  |  |         |   |  |   |  |
+
+with organic radicals on the side links. These organisms were a
+transitional 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 be
+seen in the backwaters of the central seas.
+
+A further development occurred when the silicone chain animals began
+to get short-chain silicones into their circulatory systems, held in
+solution by OH or NH_{2} groups on the ends and branches of the
+chains. The proportion of these compounds gradually increased until
+the water was a minor and then a missing constituent. The larger
+mobile species were, then, practically anhydrous. Their blood consists
+of short-chain silicones, with quartz reinforcing for the soft parts
+and their armor, teeth, etc., of pure amorphous quartz (opal). Most of
+these parts are of the milky variety, variously tinted with metallic
+impurities, 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 the
+compromise types into odd corners as relics. They developed into a
+fish-like animal with a very large swim-bladder to compensate for the
+rather higher density of the silicone tissues, and from these fish the
+land animals developed. Due to their high density and resulting high
+weight, 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 the
+silicone tissue. One merges into the other.
+
+The dominant pure silicone animals only could become mobile and
+venture far from the temperate equatorial regions of Uller, since they
+neither froze nor stiffened with cold, nor became incapacitated by
+heat. Note that all animal life is cold-blooded, with a negligible
+difference between body and ambient temperatures. Since the animals
+are silicones, they don't get sluggish like cold snakes.
+
+
+5. PLANT LIFE
+
+The plants are of the carbon-metabolism, silicate-shell type, like the
+primitive animals. They spread out from the equator as far as they
+could go before the baking polar summers killed them. They have normal
+seasonal growth in the temperate zones and remain dormant and frozen
+in the winter. At the poles there is no vegetation, not because of the
+cold winter, but because of the hot summer. The winter winds
+frequently blow over dead trees and roll them as far as the equatorial
+seas. Other dead vegetation, because of the highly silicious water,
+always gets petrified unless it is eaten first. What with the
+quartz-speckled hides of the living vegetation and the solid quartz of
+the dead, a forest is spectacular.
+
+The silicone animals live on the plants. They chew them up, dehydrate
+them, and convert their silicious outer bark and carbonaceous
+interiors into silicones for themselves. When silicone tissue is
+metabolized, the carbon and hydrogen go to CO_{2} and H_{2}O, which
+are breathed out, while the silicone goes into SiO_{2}, which is
+deposited as more teeth and armor. (Compare the terrestrial octopus,
+which makes armor-plating out of calcium urate instead of excreting
+urea or uric acid.) The animals can, of course, eat each other too, or
+make 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 water
+and CO_{2} is too difficult a problem. When they warm up, the water in
+the 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, right
+angle 6:36, declension-43:09; B8 type star, blue-white and hot, 148
+light years distant from Earth, which will require a speed in excess
+of light to reach it.
+
+Niflheim is 462,000,000 miles from its primary, a little less than the
+distance of Jupiter from our sun. It thus does not receive too great a
+total amount of energy, but what it does receive is of high potential,
+a large fraction of it being in the ultra-violet and higher
+frequencies. (Watch out for really super-special sunburn, etc., on
+unwarned personnel.)
+
+The gravity of Niflheim is approximately 1 g, the atmospheric pressure
+approximately 1 atmosphere, and the average ambient temperature
+about-60°C;-76°F.
+
+
+2. ATMOSPHERE
+
+The oxidizer in the atmosphere is free fluorine (F_{2}) in a rather
+low concentration, about 4 or 5 percent. With it appears a mad
+collection of gases. There are a few inert diluents, such as N_{2}
+(nitrogen), argon, helium, neon, etc., but the major fraction consists
+of 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, the
+fluorides of all the non-metals that can form fluorides. The
+phosphorous pentafluoride rains out when the weather gets cold. There
+is also free oxygen, but no chlorine. That would be liquid except in
+very hot weather. It sometimes appears combined with fluorine in
+chlorine trifluoride. The atmosphere has a slight yellowish tinge.
+
+
+3. SOIL AND GEOLOGY
+
+Above the metallic core of the planet, the lithosphere consists
+exclusively of fluorides of the metals. There are no oxides, sulfides,
+silicates or chlorides. There are small deposits of such things as
+bromine trifluoride, but these have no great importance. Since
+fluorides are weak mechanically, the terrain is flattish. Nothing
+tough like granite to build mountains out of. Since the fluoride ion
+is colorless, the color of the soil depends upon the predominant metal
+in 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 and
+boils at 19.4°C. In it are dissolved varying quantities of metallic
+and non-metallic fluorides, such as boron trifluoride, sodium
+fluoride, etc. When the oceans and lakes freeze, they do so from the
+bottom 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 the
+soil, and carbon tetrafluoride as the equivalent of carbon dioxide
+from 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 could
+only take place on a planet receiving lots of ultra-violet because so
+much energy is needed to break up carbon tetrafluoride and
+hydrofluoric acid. The plant catalyst (doubling for the magnesium in
+chlorophyll) is nickel. The plants are colored in various ways. They
+get their metals from the soil.
+
+
+6. ANIMALS AND ANIMAL METABOLISM
+
+Animals depend upon two main reactions for their energy, and for the
+construction of their harder tissues. The soft tissues are about the
+same as the plant molecules, but the hard tissues are produced by the
+reaction:
+
+  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 be
+tough to do much with. Diatoms leave strata of powdered teflon. The
+main 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 colorless
+arterial blood and violet veinous, as the titanium flips back and
+forth 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, hydrofluoric
+acid, etc., with more or less speed. A rubber gas mask lasts about an
+hour. Glass first frosts and then disappears. Plastics act like
+rubber, only a little slower. The heavy metals, iron, nickel, copper,
+monel, etc., stand up well, forming an insoluble coat of fluorides at
+first and then doing nothing else.
+
+
+8. WHY GO THERE?
+
+Large natural crystals of fluorides, such as calcium difluoride,
+titanium tetrafluoride, zirconium tetrafluoride, are extremely useful
+in optical instruments of various forms. Uranium appears as uranium
+hexafluoride, all ready for the diffusion process. Compounds of such
+non-metals as boron are obtainable from the atmosphere in high purity
+with very little trouble. All metallurgy must be electrical. There are
+considerable deposits of beryllium, and they occur in high
+concentration in its ores.
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+On Satan's Footstool
+
+
+The big armor-tender vibrated, gently and not unpleasantly, as the
+contragravity field alternated on and off, occasionally varying its
+normal rate of five hundred to the second when some thermal updraft
+lifted the vehicle and the automatic radar-altimeter control acted to
+alter the frequency and lower it again. Sometimes it rocked slightly,
+like a boat on the water, and, in the big screen which served in lieu
+of a window at the front of the control cabin, the dingy-yellow
+landscape would seem to tilt a little. If unshielded human eyes could
+have endured the rays of Nu Puppis, Niflheim's primary, the whole scene
+would have appeared a vivid Saint Patrick's Day green, the effect of
+the blue-predominant light on the yellow atmosphere. The outside
+'visor-pickup, however, was fitted with filters which blocked out the
+gamma-rays and X-rays and most of the ultra-violet-rays, and added the
+longer light-waves of red and orange which were absent, so that things
+looked much as they would have under the light of a G0-type star like
+Sol. The air was faintly yellow, the sky was yellow with a greenish
+cast, and the clouds were green-gray.
+
+A thousand feet below, the local equivalent of a forest grew, the
+trees, topped with huge ragged leaves, looking like hundred-foot
+stalks of celery. There would be animal life down there, too--little
+round things, four inches across, like eight-legged crabs, gnawing at
+the vegetation, and bigger things, two feet long, with articulated
+shell-armor and sixteen legs, which fed on the smaller herbivores.
+Beyond, in the middleground, was open grassland, if one could so call
+a mat of wormlike colorless or pastel-tinted sprouts, and a river
+meandered through it. On the skyline, fifty miles away, was a range of
+low dunes and hills, none more than a thousand feet high.
+
+No human had ever set foot on the surface, or breathed the air, of
+Niflheim. To have done so would have been instant death; the air was a
+mixture of free fluorine and fluoride gasses, the soil was metallic
+fluorides, damp with acid rains, and the river was pure hydrofluoric
+acid. Even the ordinary spacesuit would have been no protection; the
+glass and rubber and plastic would have disintegrated in a matter of
+minutes. People came to Niflheim, and worked the mines and uranium
+refineries and chemical plants, but they did so inside power-driven
+and contragravity-lifted armor, and they lived on artificial
+satellites two thousand miles off-planet. This vehicle, for instance,
+was built and protected as no spaceship ever had to be, completely
+insulated and entered only through a triple airlock--an outer lock,
+which would be evacuated outward after it was closed, a middle lock
+kept evacuated at all times, and an inner lock, evacuated into the
+interior 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 lateral
+adjustments in the vehicle's position which were not possible to the
+automatic controls. One of the radiomen was receiving from the orbital
+base; the other was saying, over and over, in an exasperatedly
+patient voice: "Dr. Murillo. Dr. Murillo. Please come in, Dr.
+Murillo." At his own panel of instruments, a small man with grizzled
+black hair around a bald crown, and a grizzled beard, chewed nervously
+at the stump of a dead cigar and listened intently to what was--or for
+what wasn't--coming in to his headset receiver. A couple of assistants
+checked dials and refreshed their memories from notebooks and peered
+anxiously into the big screen. A large, plump-faced, young man in
+soiled khaki shirt and shorts, with extremely hairy legs, was doodling
+on his notepad and eating candy out of a bag. And a black-haired girl
+in a suit of coveralls three sizes too big for her, and, apparently,
+not much of anything else, lounged with one knee hooked over her
+chair-arm, staring into the screen at the distant horizon.
+
+"Dr. Murillo. Dr. Mur--" The radioman broke off in mid-syllable and
+listened for a moment. "I hear you, doctor, go ahead." Then, a moment
+later "What's your position, now, doctor?"
+
+"I can see them," the girl said, lifting a hand in front of her. "At
+two 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 the
+eyepiece of the telescopic-'visor and twisted a dial. "You have good
+eyes, 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's
+missing, and why?" He waited for a moment, then lowered the hand-phone
+and turned. "The fifth one's inside the handling-machine. One of the
+Ullerans. Gorkrink."
+
+The larger of the specks that had appeared on the horizon resolved
+itself into a handling-machine, a thing like an oversized
+contragravity-tank, with a bulldozer-blade, a stubby derrick-boom
+instead of a gun, and jointed, claw-tipped arms to the sides. The
+smaller dots grew into personal armor--egg-shaped things that sprouted
+arms and grab-hooks and pushers in all directions. The man with the
+grizzled beard began talking rapidly into his hand-phone, then hung it
+up. There was a series of bumps, and the armor-tender, weightless on
+contragravity, shook as the handling-machine came aboard.
+
+"You ever see any nuclear bombing, Miss Quinton?" the young man with
+the 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 never
+even 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 been
+dormant for, oh, maybe as long as a thousand years; there ought to be
+a 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 anything
+like basalt in composition--it'll be intensely compressed metallic
+fluorides, with a very high metal-content. The volcanoes we shot three
+months ago yielded a fine flow of lava with all sorts of
+metals--nickel, beryllium, vanadium, chromium, indium, as well as
+copper and iron."
+
+"What sort of gas were you speaking about?" she asked.
+
+"Hydrogen. That's what's going to make the fireworks; it combines
+explosively with fluorine. The hydrogen-fluorine combination is what
+passes for combustion here; the result is hydrofluoric acid, the
+local equivalent of water. See, the metallic core of this planet is
+covered, much less thickly than that of Terra, with fluoride
+rock--fluorspar, and that sort of thing. There's nothing like granite
+here, for instance. That's why those big dunes, out there, are the
+best Niflheim has in the way of mountains. The subsurface hydrogen is
+produced when the acid filters down through the rock, combines with
+pure metals underneath."
+
+"Dr. Murillo's inside, now," the radioman said. "Just came out of the
+inner airlock. He'll be up as soon as he gets out of his
+pressure-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 big
+man, copper-skinned, barrel-chested; he looked like a third-or
+fourth-generation Martian, of Andes Indian ancestry. He came forward
+and stood behind Gomes' chair, looking down at the instruments. His
+assistant stopped at the door. This assistant was not human. He was a
+biped, vaguely humanoid, but he had four arms and a face like a
+lizard's, and, except for some equipment on a belt, he was entirely
+naked.
+
+He spoke rapidly to Murillo, in a squeaking jabber. Murillo turned.
+
+"Yes, if you wish, Gorkrink," he said, in the
+English-Spanish-Afrikaans-Portuguese mixture that was Sixth Century,
+A.E., Lingua Terra. Then he turned back to Gomes as the Ulleran sat
+down 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 came
+out of the PA-speaker overhead: "In sixty seconds, the bombs will be
+detonated ... thirty seconds ... fifteen seconds ... ten seconds ...
+five seconds, four seconds, three seconds, two seconds, one
+second...."
+
+Out on the rolling skyline, fifty miles away, a lancelike ray of
+blue-white light shot up into the gathering dusk--a clump of five
+rays, really, from five deep shafts in an irregular pentagon half a
+mile across, blended into one by the distance. An instant later, there
+was a blinding flash, like sheet-lightning, and a huge ball of
+varicolored fire belched upward, leaving a series of smoke-rings to
+float more slowly after it. That fireball flattened, then spread to
+form the mushroom-head of a column of incandescent gas that mounted to
+overtake it, engorging the smoke-rings as it rose, twisting, writhing,
+changing shape, turning to dark smoke in one moment and belching flame
+and crackling with lightning the next. The armor-tender began to pitch
+and 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 real
+fireworks should be starting. What's coming up now is just small
+debris from the nuclear blast. When the shockwaves get down far enough
+to crack things open, the gas'll come up, and then steam and ash, and
+then the magma. This one ought to be twice as good as the one we shot
+three months ago; it ought to be every bit as good as Krakatoa, on
+Terra, 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 Gomes
+asked. "I wish I were; I have to stay over and make another shot, in a
+month or so, and I've had about all of Niflheim I can take, now. The
+sooner I get onto a planet where they don't ration the air, the better
+I'll like it."
+
+"Well, what do you know!" the large young man with the hairy legs
+mock-marveled. "He doesn't like our nice planet!"
+
+"Nice planet!" Gomes muttered something. "They call Terra God's
+Footstool; well, I'll give you one guess who uses this thing to prop
+his 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 the
+next ship--the _City of Pretoria_--if we get the next blast off in
+time. They want me to design some improvements on a couple of
+power-reactors, so I'll probably see you when I get there."
+
+"Here she comes!" the chief engineer called. "Watch the base of the
+column!"
+
+The pillar of fiery smoke and dust, still boiling up from where the
+bombs had gone off far underground, was being violently agitated at
+the bottom. A series of new flashes broke out, lifting and spreading
+the incandescent radioactive gasses, and then a great gush of flame
+rose. A column of pure hydrogen must have rushed up into the vacuum
+created by the explosion; the next blast of flame, in a lateral sheet,
+came at nearly ten thousand feet above the ground, and great rags of
+fire, changing from red to violet and back through the spectrum to red
+again, went soaring away to dissipate in the upper atmosphere. Then
+geysers of hot ash and molten rock spouted upward; some of the
+white-hot debris landed almost at the acid river, half-way to the
+armor-tender.
+
+"We've started a first-class earthquake, too," the Hispano-Indian
+Martian Murillo said, looking at the instruments. "About six big
+cracks opening in the rock-structure. You know, when this quiets down
+and cools off, we'll have more ore on the surface than we can handle
+in ten years, and more than we could have mined by ordinary means in
+fifty."
+
+About four miles from the original blast, another eruption began with
+a terrific gas-explosion.
+
+"Well, that finishes our work," the large young man said, going to a
+kitbag in the corner of the cabin and getting out a bottle. "Get some
+of those plastic cups, over there, somebody; this one calls for a
+drink."
+
+"That's right," Gomes said. "You do something once, it may be an
+accident; you repeat the performance, and it's a success." He began
+pushing papers aside on his desk, and the girl in the too-ample
+coveralls brought drinking cups.
+
+The Ulleran, in the background, rose quickly and squeaked
+apologetically. Murillo nodded. "Yes, of course, Gorkrink. No need for
+you to stay here." The Ulleran went out, closing the door behind him.
+
+"That taboo against Ullerans and Terrans watching each other eat and
+drink," Murillo said. "What is that, part of their religion?"
+
+"No, it's their version of modesty," the girl replied. "Like some of
+our sex-inhibitions, which they can't even begin to understand.... But
+you were speaking to him in Lingua Terra; I didn't know any of them
+understood it."
+
+"Gorkrink does," Murillo said, uncorking the bottle and pouring into
+the plastic cups. "None of them can speak it, of course, because of
+the structure of their vocal organs, any more than we can speak their
+languages without artificial aids. But I can talk to him in Lingua
+Terra without having to put one of those damn gags in my mouth, and he
+can pass my instructions on to the others. He's been a big help; I'll
+be sorry to lose him."
+
+"Lose him?"
+
+"Yes, his year's up; he's going back to Uller on the _Canberra_. You
+know, it's impossible to keep some trace of fluorine from the air in
+the handling-machines, or even out on the orbiters, and it plays the
+devil with their lungs. He wanted to stay on another three months, to
+help with the next shot, but the medics wouldn't hear of it.... He's
+from Keegark, wherever on Uller that is; claims to be a prince, or
+something. I know all the other geeks kowtow to him. But he's a damn
+good worker. Very smart; picks things up the first time you tell him.
+I'll recommend him unqualifiedly for any kind of work with
+contragravity or mechanized equipment."
+
+They all had drinks, now, except the chief engineer, who wanted a
+rain-check on his.
+
+"Well, here's to us," Murillo said. "The first A-bomb miners in
+history...."
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Commander-in-Chief Front and Center
+
+
+General Carlos von Schlichten threw his cigarette away, flexed his
+hands in his gloves, and set his monocle more firmly in his eye,
+stepping forward as the footsteps on the stairway behind him ceased
+and the other officers emerged from the squat flint keep--Captain
+Cazabielle, the post CO; big, chocolate-brown Brigadier-General
+Themistocles M'zangwe; little Colonel Hideyoshi O'Leary. Far in front
+of him, to the left, the horizon was lost in the cloudbank over Takkad
+Sea; directly in front, and to the right, the brown and gray and black
+flint mountains sawed into the sky until they vanished in the
+distance. Unseen below, the old caravan-trail climbed one side of the
+pass and slid down the other, a sheer five hundred feet below the
+parapet and the two corner catapult-platforms which now mounted 90-mm
+guns. On the little hundred-foot-square parade ground in front of the
+keep, 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 and
+corporal-gunner of his own car. The other fifty-odd were Ulleran
+natives. They stood erect on stumpy legs and broad, six-toed feet.
+They had four arms apiece, one pair from true shoulders and the other
+connected to a pseudo-pelvis midway down the torso. Their skins were
+slate-gray and rubbery, speckled with pinhead-sized bits of quartz
+that had been formed from perspiration, for their body-tissues were
+silicone instead of carbon-hydrogen. Their narrow heads were
+unpleasantly saurian; they had small, double-lidded red eyes, and
+slit-like nostrils, and wide mouths filled with opalescent teeth.
+Except for their belts and equipment, they were completely naked; the
+uniform consisted of the emblem of the Chartered Uller Company
+stencil-painted on chests and backs. Clothing, to them, was
+unnecessary, either for warmth or modesty. As to the former, they were
+cold-blooded and could stand a temperature-range of from a hundred and
+twenty to minus one hundred Centigrade. Von Schlichten had seen them
+sleeping in the open with their bodies covered with frost or freezing
+rain; he had also seen them wade through boiling water. As to the
+second, they had practically no sex-inhibitions; they were all of the
+same gender, true, functional, hermaphrodites. Any individual among
+them could bear young, or fertilize the ova of any other individual.
+Fifteen years ago, when he had come to Uller as a former Terran
+Federation captain newly commissioned colonel in the army of the Uller
+Company, it had taken some time before he had become accustomed to the
+detailing of a non-com and a couple of privates out of each platoon
+for baby-sitting duty. At least, though, they didn't have the
+squaw-trouble around army posts on Uller that they had on Thor, where
+he had last been stationed.
+
+An airjeep, coming in out of the sun, circled the crag-top fort and
+let down onto the terrace next to von Schlichten's command-car. It
+carried a bristle of 15-mm machine-guns, and two of the eight 50-mm
+rocket-tubes on either side were empty and freshly smoke-stained. The
+duraglass canopy slid back, and the two-man crew--lieutenant-driver
+and 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 manner
+of Terran soldiers on extraterrestrial duty, and returned the
+greeting.
+
+"How's the Jeel situation?" he asked, then nodded toward the fired
+rocket-tubes. "I see you had some shooting."
+
+"Yes, sir," the lieutenant said. "Two bands of them. We sighted the
+first coming up the eastern side of the mountain about two miles this
+side of the Blue Springs. We got about half of them with MG-fire, and
+the rest dived into a big rock-crevice. We had to use two rockets on
+them, 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 mile
+this side of Zortolk's Old Fort. There were only six of them; they
+were 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 been
+eating inside the family quite a bit, lately. We let them have two
+rockets. No survivors. Not many very big pieces, in fact. We let down
+at Zortolk's for a beer, after that, and Captain Martinelli told us
+that one of his jeeps caught what he thinks was the same band that was
+down off the mountain night-before-last and ate those peasants on
+Prince Neeldink's estate."
+
+"By God, I'm glad to hear that!" There'd been a perfect hell of a flap
+about that business. Before the Terrans came to Uller, it was a good
+year when not more than five hundred farm-folk would be killed and
+eaten by Jeel cannibals. The incident of two nights ago had been the
+first of its kind in almost six months, but the nobleman whose serfs
+had been eaten was practically accusing the Company of responsibility
+for the crime. "I'll see that Neeldink is informed. The more you do
+for these damned geeks, the more they expect from you.... When you get
+your vehicle re-ammoed, lieutenant, suppose you buzz back to where you
+machine-gunned that first gang. If there are any more around, they'll
+have 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'd
+heard from the cannibal-extermination project for some time.
+
+He turned to Themistocles M'zangwe. "In about two weeks, get a little
+task-force together. Say ten combat-cars, about twenty airjeeps, and a
+battalion of Kragan Rifles in troop-carriers. Oh, yes, and this
+good-for-nothing Konkrook Fencibles outfit of Prince Jaizerd's; they
+can be used for beaters, and to block escape routes." He turned back
+to Lieutenant Kendall and Sergeant Garcia. "Good work, boys. And if
+the synchro-photos show that any of that first bunch got away, don't
+feel too badly about it. These Jeels can hide on the top of a
+pool-table."
+
+He climbed into the command-car, followed by Themistocles M'zangwe and
+Hideyoshi O'Leary. Sergeant Harry Quong and Corporal Hassan Bogdanoff
+took their places on the front seat; the car lifted, turned to nose
+into the wind, and rose in a slow spiral. Below, the fort grew
+smaller, a flat-topped rectangle of masonry overlooking the pass, a
+gun covering each approach, and two more on the square keep to cover
+the rocky hogback on which the fort had been built, with the flagpole
+between them. Once that pole had lifted a banner of ragged black
+marsh-flopper skin bearing the device of the Kragan riever-chieftain
+whose family had built the castle; now it carried a neat rectangle of
+blue bunting emblazoned with the wreathed globe of the Terran
+Federation and, below that, the blue-gray pennant which bore the
+vermilion trademark of the Chartered Uller Company.
+
+"Where now, sir?" Harry Quong asked.
+
+He looked at his watch. Seventeen-hundred; there wasn't time for a
+visit 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 began
+humming and then the hot-jets were cut in. The car turned from the
+fort and the mountains and shot away over the foothills toward the
+coastal plain. Below were forests, yellow-green with new foliage of
+the second growing season of the equatorial year, veined with narrow
+dirt roads and spotted with occasional clearings. Farther east, the
+dirty gray woodsmoke of Uller marked the progress of the
+charcoal-burnings. It took forty years to burn the forests clear back
+to 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 the
+south, he could see the dark green squares, where the hemlocks and
+Norway spruce had been planted by the Company. With a little chemical
+fertilizer, they were doing well, and they made better charcoal than
+the silicate-heavy native wood. That was the only natural fuel on
+Uller; there was no coal, of course, since fallen timber and even
+standing dead trees petrified in a matter of a couple of years. There
+was too much silica on Uller, and not enough of anything else; what
+would be coal-seams on Terra were strata of silicified wood. And, of
+course, there was no petroleum. There was less charcoal being burned
+now than formerly; the Uller Company had been bringing in great
+quantities of synthetic thermoconcentrate-fuel, and had been setting
+up nuclear furnaces and nuclear-electric power-plants, wherever they
+gained a foothold on the planet.
+
+Beyond the forests came the farmlands. Around the older estates, thick
+walls 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 walls
+falling into disrepair. Some of the newer farms, land devoted to
+agriculture with the declining demand for charcoal, had neither moats
+nor walls. That was the Company, too; the huge shell-armored beasts
+had become virtually extinct in the Konk Isthmus now, since the
+introduction of bazookas and recoilless rifles. There seemed to be
+quite a bit of power-equipment working in the fields, and big
+contragravity lorries were drifting back and forth, scattering
+fertilizer, mainly nitrates from Mimir or Yggdrasill. There were still
+a good number of animal-drawn plows and harrows in use, however.
+
+As planets went, Uller was no bargain, he thought sourly. At times, he
+wished he had never followed the lure of rapid promotion and
+fantastically high pay and left the Federation regulars for the army
+of the Uller Company. If he hadn't, he'd probably be a colonel, at
+five thousand sols a year, but maybe it would be better to be a
+middle-aged colonel on a decent planet--Odin, with its two moons,
+Hugin and Munin, and its wide grasslands and its evergreen forests
+that looked and even smelled like the pinewoods of Terra, or Baldur,
+with snow-capped mountains, and clear, cold lakes, and rocky rivers
+dashing under great vine-hung trees, or Freya, where the people were
+human to the last degree and the women were so breathtakingly
+beautiful--than a Company army general at twenty-five thousand on
+this combination icebox, furnace, wind-tunnel and stonepile, where the
+water tasted like soapsuds and left a crackly film when it dried;
+where the temperature ranged, from pole to pole, between two hundred
+and fifty and minus a hundred and fifty Fahrenheit and the
+Beaufort-scale ran up to thirty; where nothing that ran or swam or
+grew was fit for a human to eat, and where the people....
+
+Of course, there were worse planets than Uller. There was Nidhog, cold
+and foggy, its equatorial zone a gloomy marsh and the rest of the planet
+locked in eternal ice. There was Bifrost, which always kept the same
+face turned to its primary; one side blazingly hot and the other close
+to absolute zero, with a narrow and barely habitable twilight zone
+between. There was Mimir, swarming with a race of semi-intelligent
+quasi-rodents, murderous, treacherous, utterly vicious. Or Niflheim. The
+Uller Company had the franchise for Niflheim, too; they'd had to take
+that and agree to exploit the planet's resources in order to get the
+franchise for Uller, which furnished a good quick measure of the
+comparative merits of the two.
+
+Ahead, the city of Konkrook sprawled along the delta of the Konk river
+and 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, and
+not at all this late in the northern summer. The aircar lost altitude,
+and the hot-jet stopped firing. They came gliding in over the suburbs
+and the yellow-green parks, over the low one-story dwellings and
+shops, the lofty temples and palaces, the fantastically twisted
+towers, following a street that became increasingly mean and squalid
+as it neared the industrial district along the waterfront.
+
+Von Schlichten, on the right, glanced idly down, puffing slowly on
+his cigarette. Then he stiffened, the muscles around his right eye
+clamping tighter on the monocle. Leaning forward, he punched Harry
+Quong lightly on the shoulder.
+
+"Circle back, sergeant; let's have a look at that street again," he
+directed. "Something going on, down there; looks like a riot."
+
+"Yes, sir; I saw it," the Chinese-Australian driver replied. "Terrans
+in trouble; bein' mobbed by geeks. Aircar parked right in the bloody
+middle 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 up
+against a house. I saw one of them firing a pistol."
+
+Von Schlichten had the handset of the car's radio, and was punching
+out the combination of the Company guardhouse on Gongonk Island; he
+held down the signal button until he got an answer.
+
+"Von Schlichten, in car over Konkrook. Riot on Fourth Avenue, just off
+Seventy-second Street." No Terran could possibly remember the names of
+Konkrook's streets; even native troops recruited from outside found
+the numbers easier to learn and remember. "Geeks mobbing a couple of
+Terrans. I'm going down, now, to do what I can to help; send troops in
+a hurry. Kragan Rifles. And stand by; my driver'll give it to you as
+it happens."
+
+The voice of somebody at the guardhouse, bawling orders, came out of
+the receiver as he tossed the phone forward over Harry Quong's
+shoulder; Quong caught it and began speaking rapidly and urgently into
+it while he steered with the other hand. Von Schlichten took one of
+the five-pound spiked riot-maces out of the rack in front of him.
+Themistocles M'zangwe had already drawn his pistol; he shifted it to
+his left hand and took a mace in his right. The Nipponese-Irish
+colonel, looking like a homicidally infuriated pixie, had an automatic
+in one hand and a long dagger in the other.
+
+Harry Quong and Hassan Bogdanoff were old Uller hands; they'd done
+this sort of work before. Bogdanoff rose into the ball-turret and
+swung the twin 15-mm's around, cutting loose. Quong brought the car in
+fast, at about shoulder-height on the mob. Between them, they left a
+swath of mangled, killed, wounded, and stunned natives. Then, spinning
+the car around, Quong set it down hard on a clump of rioters as close
+as possible to the struggling group around the two Terrans. Von
+Schlichten threw back the canopy and jumped out of the car, O'Leary
+and M'zangwe behind him.
+
+There was another aircar, a dark maroon civilian job, at the curb; its
+native driver was slumped forward over the controls, a short
+crossbow-bolt sticking out of his neck. Backed against the closed door
+of a house, a Terran with white hair and a small beard was clubbing
+futilely with an empty pistol. He was wounded, and blood was streaming
+over his face. His companion, a young woman in a long fur coat, was
+laying about her with a native bolo-knife.
+
+Von Schlichten's mace had a spiked ball-head, and a four-inch spike in
+front of that. He smashed the ball down on the back of one Ulleran's
+head, and jabbed another in the rump with the spike.
+
+"_Zak! Zak!_" he yelled, in pidgin-Ulleran. "_Jik-jik_, you
+lizard-faced Creator's blunder!"
+
+The Ulleran whirled, swinging a blade somewhere between a big
+butcherknife and a small machete. His mouth was open, and there was
+froth 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 the
+spike-end into the opal-filled mouth. "And _znidd_ you, too," he
+added, recovering and slamming the ball-head down on the narrow
+saurian skull. The Ulleran went down, spurting a yellow fluid about
+the consistency of gun-oil. Then, without wasting words, he maced
+another of the things.
+
+Ahead, one of the natives had caught the wounded Terran with both
+lower hands, and was raising a dagger with his upper right. The girl
+in the fur coat swung wildly, slashing the knife-arm, then chopped
+down on the creature's neck. To one side, a native somewhat better
+dressed than the others, to the extent of a couple of belts with gold
+ornaments, drew a Terran automatic. Von Schlichten hurled his mace and
+drew his pistol, thumbing off the safety as he swung it up, but before
+he could fire, Hassan Bogdanoff had seen and swung his guns around;
+the double burst caught the native in the chest and fairly tore him
+apart.
+
+Another of them closed with the girl, grabbing her right arm with all
+four hands and biting at her; she screamed and kicked her attacker in
+the groin, where an Ulleran is, if anything, even more vulnerable than
+a Terran. The native howled hideously, and von Schlichten, jumping
+over a couple of corpses, shoved the muzzle of his pistol into the
+creature's open mouth and pulled the trigger, blowing its head apart
+like a rotten pumpkin and splashing both himself and the girl with
+yellow blood and rancid-looking gray-green brains.
+
+Hideyoshi O'Leary, jumping forward after von Schlichten, stuck his
+dagger into the neck of a rioter and left it there, then caught the
+girl around the waist with his free arm. Themistocles M'zangwe dropped
+his mace and swung the frail-looking man onto his back. Together, they
+struggled back to the command-car, von Schlichten covering the retreat
+with his pistol. Another rioter--a Zirk nomad from the North, he
+guessed--was aiming one of the long-barreled native air-rifles,
+holding the ten-inch globe of the air-chamber in both lower hands. Von
+Schlichten shot him, and the Zirk literally blew to pieces.
+
+For an instant, he wondered how the small bursting-charge of a 10-mm
+explosive pistol-bullet could accomplish such havoc, and assumed that
+the native had been carrying a bomb in his belt. Then another
+explosion 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 swept
+between the hovels on one side and the warehouses on the other,
+strafing the mob, darted up to a thousand feet, looped, and came
+swooping back, and this time there were three long blue-gray
+troop-carriers behind them.
+
+These landed in the hastily cleared street and began disgorging native
+Company soldiers--Kragan mercenaries, he noted with satisfaction. They
+carried a modified version of the regular Terran Federation infantry
+rifle, 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 of
+the mob. Four-handed soldiers can deliver a simply astonishing volume
+of fire, particularly when armed with auto-rifles having twenty-shot
+drop-out magazines which can be changed with the lower hands without
+lowering the weapon.
+
+There was a clatter of shod hoofs, and a company of the King of
+Konkrook's cavalry came trotting up on their six-legged,
+lizard-headed, quartz-speckled mounts. Some of these charged into side
+alleys, joyfully lancing and cutting down fleeing rioters, while
+others dismounted, three tossing their reins to a fourth, and went to
+work with their crossbows. Von Schlichten, who ordinarily entertained
+a dim opinion of the King of Konkrook's soldiery, admitted,
+grudgingly, that it was smart work; four hands were a big help in
+using 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 Harry
+Quong, a pistol in his right hand, was still talking into the
+radio-phone, and Hassan Bogdanoff was putting fresh belts into his
+guns. Then he saw that the Graeco-African brigadier and the
+Irish-Japanese colonel had gotten the wounded man into the car. The
+girl, having dropped her bolo, was leaning against the side of the
+car, one foot heedlessly in what was left of an Ulleran who had gotten
+smashed under it, weak with nervous reaction.
+
+"We seem to be, Captain Pedolsky. Very smart work; you must have those
+vehicles of yours on hyperspace-drive.... How is he, colonel?"
+
+"We'd better get him to the hospital, right away," O'Leary replied. "I
+think he has a concussion."
+
+"Harry, call the hospital. Tell them what the score is, and tell them
+we're bringing the casualty in to their top landing stage.... Why,
+we'll make out very nicely, captain. You'd better stay around with
+your Kragans and make sure that these geeks of King Jaikark's don't
+let the riot flare up again and get away from them. And don't let them
+get the impression that they can maintain order around here without
+our help; the Company would like to see that attitude discouraged."
+
+"Yes, sir, I understand." Captain Pedolsky opened the pouch on his
+belt and took out the false palate and tongue-clicker without which no
+Terran could do more than mouth a crude and barely comprehensible
+pidgin-Ulleran. Stuffing the gadget into his mouth, he turned and
+began 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 the
+jump-seats. The driver put on the contragravity-field, and the car
+lifted up.
+
+"Them, see if there's a flask and a drinking-cup in the door pocket
+next to you," he said. "I think Miss Quinton could use a drink."
+
+The girl turned. Even in her present disheveled condition, she was
+beautiful--a trifle on the petite side, with black hair and black eyes
+that quirked up oddly at the outer corners. Her nails were
+black-lacquered and spotted with little gold stars, evidently a new
+feminine 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 _City
+of Canberra_ got in from Niflheim. On Uller, there aren't enough of us
+that everybody doesn't know all about everybody else. You're Dr. Paula
+Quinton; you're an extraterrestrial sociographer, and you're a
+field-agent for the Extraterrestrials' Rights Association, like
+Mohammed Ferriera, here." He took the cup and flask from Themistocles
+M'zangwe and poured her a drink. "Take this easy, now; Baldur
+honey-rum, a hundred and fifty proof."
+
+He watched her sip the stuff cautiously, cough over the first
+mouthful, and then get the rest of it down.
+
+"More?" When she shook her head, he stoppered the flask and relieved
+her of the cup. "What were you doing in that district, anyhow?" he
+wanted to know. "I'd have thought Mohammed Ferriera would have had
+more sense than to take you there, or go there, himself, for that
+matter."
+
+"We went to visit a friend of his, a native named Keeluk, who seems to
+be a sort of combination clergyman and labor leader," she replied.
+"I'm going to observe labor conditions at the North Pole mines in a
+short while, and Mr. Keeluk was going to give me letters of
+introduction to friends of his at Skilk."
+
+With the aid of his monocle, von Schlichten managed to keep a straight
+face. Neither M'zangwe nor O'Leary had any such aid; the African
+rolled his eyes and the Japanese-Irishman grimaced.
+
+"We talked with Mr. Keeluk for a while," the girl said, "and when we
+came out, we found that our driver had been killed and a mob had
+gathered. Of course, we were carrying pistols; they're part of this
+survival-kit you make everybody carry, along with the emergency-rations
+and 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 that
+big 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 in
+my life saw anything as beautiful as you coming through that mob
+swinging that war-club!"
+
+"Well, I never saw anything much more beautiful than those 40-mm's
+beginning to land in the mob," von Schlichten replied.
+
+The aircar swung out over Konkrook Channel and headed toward the
+blue-gray Company buildings on Gongonk Island, and the Company
+airport, swarming with lorries and airboats, where the ten
+thousand-ton _Oom Paul Kruger_ had just come in from Keegark, and the
+Company's one real warship, the cruiser _Procyon_, was lifting out for
+Grank, in the North. Down at the southern tip of the island, the
+three-thousand-foot globe of the spaceship _City of Pretoria_, from
+Niflheim, was loading with cargo for Terra.
+
+"Just what happened, while you and Mr. Ferriera were in Keeluk's
+house. Miss Quinton?" Hideyoshi O'Leary asked, trying not to sound
+official. "Was Keeluk with you all the time? Or did he go out for a
+while, say fifteen or twenty minutes before you left?"
+
+"Why, yes, he did." Paula Quinton looked surprised. "How did you guess
+it? You see, a dog started barking, behind the house, and he excused
+himself 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 on
+Uller, except a few owned by Terrans. And wasn't there something
+about ...?"
+
+Von Schlichten had the radio-phone and was calling the command car at
+the scene of the riot. The sergeant-driver answered.
+
+"Von Schlichten here; my compliments to Captain Pedolsky, and tell him
+he's to make immediate and thorough search of the house in front of
+which the incident occurred, and adjoining houses. For his
+information, that's Keeluk's house. Tell him to look for traces of
+Governor-General Harrington's collie, or any of the other terrestrial
+animals that have been disappearing--that goat, for instance, or those
+rabbits. And I want Keeluk brought in, alive and in condition to be
+interrogated. I'll send more troops, or Constabulary, to help you." He
+handed 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 let
+you get away from there alive to report hearing that dog, so he went
+out 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 forces
+concentrated, and he has a pretty good staff."
+
+"But Mr. Keeluk's a friend of ours. He knows what our Association is
+trying to do for his people...."
+
+"So he shows his appreciation by setting that mob on you. Look, he has
+a lot of influence in that section. When you were attacked, why wasn't
+he out trying to quiet the mob?"
+
+"When they jumped you, you tried to get back into the house," M'zangwe
+put 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 sacred
+totem-animal of the Uller Company?"
+
+"It's just a big brown collie, named Stalin, like half the dogs on
+Terra. Somebody stole it, and Keeluk was keeping it, and we want to
+know why. We don't like geek mysteries; not when they lead to
+murderous attacks on Terrans, at least."
+
+The aircar let down on the hospital landing stage. A stretcher was
+waiting, with a Terran interne and two Ulleran orderlies. They got the
+still-unconscious Mohammed Ferriera out of the car.
+
+"You'd better go with them, yourself, Miss Quinton," von Schlichten
+advised. "You have a couple of nasty-looking bruises and bumps. A
+couple of abrasions, too, where those geeks grabbed you; they have
+hides like sandpaper. And better have that coat cleaned, before that
+goo 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 another
+thing. Those letters Keeluk was going to give you, the ones to his
+friends 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 be
+more 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 in
+Sidney Harrington's office; Harrington and Eric Blount, the
+Lieutenant-Governor, faced each other across it, over the three-foot
+disc of an Ulleran chess-board. Harrington had the white, or center,
+position. Blount, sandy-haired and considerably younger, was playing
+black, 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 that
+served all three of them.
+
+"Nothing much," he replied. "Keeluk bugged out as soon as he saw my
+car let down. We picked up a few of his ragtag-and-bobtail, and
+they're being questioned now, but I doubt if they'll tell us anything
+we don't know already. The dog had been kept in a lean-to back of the
+house; it had been removed, probably as soon as Keeluk called in his
+goon-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. "The
+riot's been put down," he continued, "but we're keeping two companies
+of Kragans in the city, and about a dozen airjeeps patrolling the
+section from Eightieth down to Sixty-fourth, and from the waterfront
+back to Eighth Avenue. There is also the equivalent of a regiment of
+King Jaikark's infantry--spearmen, crossbowmen, and a few
+riflemen--and two of those outsize cavalry companies of his, helping
+hold the lid down. They're making mass arrests, indiscriminately. More
+slaves for Jaikark's court favorite, of course."
+
+"Or else Gurgurk wants them to use for patronage," Blount added. "He's
+been building quite a political organization, lately. Getting ready to
+shove Jaikark off the throne, I'd say."
+
+Harrington pushed one of his pieces out along a radial line toward the
+rim. Blount promptly took a pawn, which, under Ulleran rules, entitled
+him to a second move. He shifted another piece, a sort of combination
+knight and bishop, to threaten the piece Harrington had moved.
+
+"Oh, Gurgurk wouldn't dare try anything like that," the
+Governor-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?" Blount
+wanted to know, hastily interposing a piece. "Gurgurk can follow one
+of two lines of policy. He can undertake to heave Jaikark off the
+throne and seize power, or he has to support Jaikark on the throne.
+We're subsidizing Jaikark. Rakkeed has been preaching this crusade
+against the Terrans, and against Jaikark, whom we control. Gurgurk has
+been subsidizing Rakkeed...."
+
+"You haven't any proof of that," Harrington protested.
+
+"My Intelligence Section has," von Schlichten put in. "We can give
+sums of money, and dates, and the names of the intermediaries through
+whom they were paid to Rakkeed. Eric is absolutely correct in making
+that statement."
+
+"Personally, I think Gurgurk's plan is something like this: Rakkeed
+will stir up anti-Terran sentiment here in Konkrook, and direct it
+against our puppet, Jaikark, as well as against us," Blount said.
+"When the outbreak comes, Jaikark will be killed, and then Gurgurk
+will step in, seize the Palace, and use the Royal army to put down the
+revolt that he's incited in the first place. That will put him in the
+position of the friend of the Company, and most of his dupes will be
+rounded up and sold as slaves, and King Gurgurk'll pocket the
+proceeds. The only question is, will Rakkeed let himself be used that
+way? I think Rakkeed's bigger than Gurgurk ever can be. And more of a
+threat to the Company. Everywhere we turn, Rakkeed's at the bottom of
+whatever happens to be wrong. This business, for instance; Keeluk's
+one of Rakkeed's followers."
+
+"Eric, you have Rakkeed on the brain!" Harrington exclaimed
+impatiently, then moved the threatened piece counterclockwise on the
+circle 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 a
+paper-hanger."
+
+"Rakkeed has no following, except among the rabble." Harrington puffed
+furiously at his pipe, trying to figure the best protection for his
+king.
+
+"You just think he hasn't," Blount retorted. "Here in Konkrook, he's
+always entertained by one or another of the big ship-owning nobles.
+They probably deprecate his table-manners, but they just love his
+politics. And the same thing at Keegark, and at the Free Cities along
+the Eastern Shore."
+
+"The last time Rakkeed was in Konkrook, he was the guest of the
+Keegarkan Ambassador," von Schlichten stated. "Intelligence got that
+from a spy we'd planted among the embassy servants."
+
+"You sure this spy wasn't just romancing?" Harrington asked. "You get
+so confounded many wild stories about Rakkeed. Three days after he was
+reported here at Konkrook, he was reported at Skilk, five thousand
+miles 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 be
+left unlocked, by carelessness, and he could blunder overboard at
+about five thousand feet." He watched Harrington make a deceptively
+pointless-looking move. "Sid, this damn dog business worries me."
+
+"Worries me, too. I'm fond of that mutt, and God only knows what sort
+of stuff he's been getting to eat. And I hate to think of why those
+geeks stole him, too."
+
+"Well, at risk of seeming heartless, I'm not so much worried for
+Stalin as I am about why Keeluk was hiding him, and why he was willing
+to murder the only two Terrans in Konkrook who trust him, to prevent
+our finding out that he had him."
+
+"A Mr. Keeluk, a clergyman," von Schlichten quoted. He chain-lit
+another cigarette and stubbed out the old one. "Maybe the Rev. Keeluk
+wanted Stalin for sacramental purposes."
+
+Blount looked up sharply. "Ritual killing?" he asked. "Or sympathetic
+magic?"
+
+Von Schlichten shrugged. "Take your choice. Maybe Rakkeed wanted the
+dog, to kill before a congregation of his followers, killing us by
+proxy, or in effigy. Or maybe they think we worship Stalin, and
+getting control of him would give them power over us. I wish we knew a
+little more about Ulleran psychology."
+
+That wasn't the first time he'd made that wish. Even if sex weren't
+the paramount psychological factor the ancient Freudians believed, it
+was an extremely important one, and on Uller most of the fundamental
+terms of Terran psychology were meaningless. At the same time, the
+average Ulleran probably had complexes and neuroses that would have
+had Freud talking to himself, and they certainly indulged in practices
+that would have even stood Krafft-Ebing's hair on end.
+
+"One thing," Blount said. "It doesn't take any Ulleran psychologist to
+know that about eighty percent of them hate us poisonously."
+
+"Oh, rubbish!" Harrington blew the exclamation out around his
+pipe-stem with a gush of smoke. "A few fanatics hate us, and a few
+merchants who lost money when we replaced this primitive barter
+economy of theirs, but nine-tenths of them have benefited enormously
+from us, and continue to benefit...."
+
+"And hate us more deeply with each new benefit," Blount added. "They
+resent everything we've done for them."
+
+"Yes, this spaceport proposition of King Orgzild of Keegark looks like
+it, now doesn't it?" Harrington retorted. "He hates and resents us so
+much that he's offered us a spaceport at his city...."
+
+"What's it going to cost him?" Blount asked. "He furnishes the
+land--sequestered from the estate of some noble he executed for
+treason--and the labor--all forced. We furnish the structural steel,
+the machine-equipment, the engineering. We get a spaceport we don't
+really need, and he gets all the business it'll bring to Keegark.
+Considering the fact that Rakkeed is a welcome guest at his embassy
+here, and at the Royal Palace at Keegark, I'm beginning to wonder if
+he isn't fomenting trouble for us here at Konkrook to make us willing
+to move our main base to his city."
+
+He made a move. Instantly, Harrington slashed out from the middle of
+the board with one of his heavy-duty, all-purpose pieces and took a
+piece, then moved again.
+
+"Now look whose king's threatened!" he crowed.
+
+"Yes, I see." Blount brought a piece clockwise around the board and
+took the threatening piece, then moved again. "I hope you see whose
+king's threatened, now."
+
+Harrington swore, reached out to move a piece, and then jerked his
+hand back as though the piece were radioactive. For a while, he sat
+puffing his pipe and staring at the board.
+
+"In fact, Orgzild's so sure that we're going to accept his offer that
+he's started building two new power-reactors, to handle the additional
+power-demand that'll result from the increased business," Blount
+continued.
+
+"Where's he getting the plutonium?" von Schlichten asked.
+
+"Where can he get it?" Harrington replied. "He just bought four tons
+of it from us, off the _City of Pretoria_."
+
+"That's a hell of a lot of plutonium," Blount said. "I wonder if he
+mightn'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 me
+started seeing burglars under the bed, next...."
+
+"Maybe there are burglars," Blount said, pointing with his
+cigarette-holder to Harrington's threatened king. "Can't you do
+something about that, Sid?" Then he turned to von Schlichten. "Before
+we get off the subject, how about those letters the Rev. Keeluk gave
+to the Quinton girl?"
+
+"All addressed to Skilkans known to be Rakkeed disciples and rabidly
+anti-Terran," von Schlichten replied. "We radioed the list to Skilk;
+Colonel Cheng-Li, our intelligence man there, teleprinted us back a
+lot of material on them that looks like the Newgate Calendar. We
+turned the letters themselves over to Doc Petrie, the Ulleran
+philology sharp, who is a pretty fair cryptanalyst. He couldn't find
+any indications of cipher, but there was a lot of gossip about
+Keeluk's friends and parishioners which might have arbitrary
+code-meanings. I'm going to explain the situation to Miss Quinton, and
+advise her to have nothing to do with any of the people Keeluk gave
+her letters to."
+
+Harrington had gotten his king temporarily out of danger, losing a
+piece 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 of
+bitches in their book, and anything we say's sure to be a Hitler-sized
+lie."
+
+"Oh, they're not as bad as all that. I never met the girl before
+today, but old Mohammed Ferriera's a decent bloke. And their
+association's really done a lot of good. For one thing, they put an
+end to the peonage system on Yggdrasill, and I know what conditions
+were like, there, before they did."
+
+A calculating look came into Harrington's eye. He puffed slowly at his
+pipe and slid a piece from the center toward the sector of the board
+nearest him. Blount whistled softly and made a quick re-arrangement.
+
+"Carlos, did you say she told you she was going to Skilk, in the near
+future?" Harrington asked. "Well, look here; you're going up that way,
+yourself, with that battalion of Kragans, on the _Aldebaran_. Why
+don't you invite her to make the trip with you? You can be quite
+attractive to young ladies, when you try, and she'll be grateful for
+that rescue this afternoon, which is always a good foundation. Maybe
+you can plant a couple of ideas where they'll do the most good. She's
+only been here for three months--since the _Canberra_ got in from
+Niflheim. You know and I know and we all know that there are a lot of
+things up there at the polar mines that would look like hell to
+anybody who didn't understand local conditions...."
+
+"Well, Miss Quinton's company won't be any particularly heavy cross
+for me to bear," von Schlichten replied. "I won't guarantee anything,
+of course...."
+
+The intercom-speaker on the table whistled several times. Harrington
+swore, laid down his pipe, and got up, brushing ashes from the front
+of his coat. He flipped a switch and spoke into the box.
+
+"Governor," a voice replied out of it, "there's a geek procession just
+landed from a water-barge in front, and is coming up the roadway to
+Company 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 last
+syllable quick enough."
+
+"That'll be Gurgurk, coming to tell us how unhappy his Sodden and
+Inebriated Geekship is about that fracas on Seventy-second Street,"
+Harrington said. "The gift-litter will contain the customary
+indemnity, at the current market quotation. Have Gurgurk and party
+admitted, all but the rifle-platoons; give him an honor guard of our
+Kragans, and keep his own gun-toters outside. Take them to the
+Reception Hall, and hold them there till I signal from the Audience
+Hall, and then herd them in."
+
+He came back and made a move. Immediately, Blount took one of his
+pieces, moved again, took another, and made the third move to which he
+was 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 about
+something if we didn't keep him waiting.... Good Lord! You do have me
+over a barrel, Eric!"
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+Four-and-Twenty Geek Heads
+
+
+Governor-General Sidney Harrington sat on the comfortably upholstered
+bench on the dais of the Audience Hall, flanked by von Schlichten and
+Eric Blount. He didn't look particularly regal, even on that high
+seat--with his ruddy outdoorsman's face and his ragged gray mustache
+and his old tweed coat spotted with pipe-ashes, he might have been any
+of the dozen-odd country-gentleman neighbors of von Schlichten's
+boyhood in the Argentine. But then, to a Terran, any of the kings of
+Uller 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 an
+Ulleran.
+
+He took the false palate and tongue-clicker, officially designated as
+an "enunciator, Ulleran" and, colloquially, as a geek-speaker, out of
+his coat pocket and shoved it into his mouth. Von Schlichten and
+Blount put in theirs, and Harrington pressed the floor-button with his
+toe. After a brief interval, the wide doors at the other end of the
+hall slid open, and the Konkrookan notables, attended by a dozen
+Company native-officers and a guard of Kragan Rifles, entered. The
+honor-guard advanced in two columns; between them marched an unclad
+and heavily armed native carrying an ornate spear with a three-foot
+blade upright in front of him with all four hands. It was the
+Konkrookan Spear of State; it represented the proxy-presence of King
+Jaikark. Behind it stalked Gurgurk, the Konkrookan equivalent of Prime
+Minister or Grand Vizier; he wore a gold helmet and a thing like a
+string-vest made of gold wire, and carried a long sword with a
+two-hand grip, a pair of Terran automatics built for a hand with six
+four-knuckled fingers, and a pair of matched daggers. He was
+considerably past the Ulleran prime of life--seventy or eighty, to
+judge from the worn appearance of his opal teeth, the color of his
+skin, and the predominantly reddish tint of his quartz-speckles. An
+immature Ulleran would be a very light gray, white under the arms, and
+his quartz-specks would run from white to pale yellow. The retinue of
+nobles behind Gurgurk ran through the whole spectrum, from a
+princeling who was almost oyster-gray to old Ghroghrank, the Keegarkan
+Ambassador, who was even blacker and more red-speckled than Gurgurk.
+All of them carried about as much ironmongery as the Prime
+Minister--the pistols were all Terran, and the swords and daggers were
+mostly made either on Terra or at the Terran-operated steel-works on
+Volund.
+
+Four slaves brought up the rear carrying an ornately inlaid box on
+poles. When the spear-bearer reached the exact middle of the hall, he
+halted and grounded his regalia-weapon with a thump. Gurgurk came up
+and halted a couple of paces behind and to the left of the spear, and
+all the other nobles drew up in two curved lines some ten paces to the
+rear, 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 planted
+themselves beside Gurgurk. Von Schlichten regarded the assemblage
+sourly 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 Blount
+accompanying him. Out of the corner of his eye, von Schlichten watched
+a couple of Kragan mercenaries with fifty-shot machine-rifles move
+unobtrusively to positions from whence they could, if necessary, spray
+the visitors with bullets without endangering the Terrans.
+
+"Welcome, Gurgurk," Harrington gibbered through his false palate. "The
+Company is honored by this visit."
+
+"I come in the name of my royal master, His Sublime and Ineffable
+Majesty, Jaikark the Seventeenth, King of Konkrook and of all the
+lands of the Konk Isthmus," Gurgurk squeaked and clicked. "I have the
+honor to bring with me the Lord Ghroghrank, Ambassador of King Orgzild
+of Keegark to the court of my royal master."
+
+"And I," Ghroghrank said, after being suitably welcomed, "am honored
+to be accompanied by Prince Gorkrink, special envoy from my master,
+his Royal and Imperial Majesty King Orgzild, who is in your city to
+receive the shipment of power-metal my royal master has been honored
+to be permitted to purchase from the Company."
+
+More protocol about welcoming Gorkrink. Then Gurgurk cleared his
+throat with a series of barking sounds.
+
+"My royal master, His Sublime and Ineffable Majesty, is prostrated
+with grief," he stated solemnly. "Were his sorrow not so overwhelming,
+he would have come in His Own Sacred Person to express the pain and
+shame which he feels that people of the Company should be set upon
+and 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 effects
+of hashish, heroin and yohimbine; Jaikark and all his court circle
+were addicts. He probably hadn't even heard of the riot.
+
+"The soldiers of His Sublime and Ineffable Majesty came most promptly
+to the aid of the troops of the Company, did they not, General von
+Schlichten?" 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 of
+his royal master, at hearing such high praise from so distinguished a
+soldier. Eric Blount then contributed a short speech, beseeching the
+gods that the deep and beautiful friendship existing between the
+Chartered Uller Company and His Sublime etcetera would continue
+unimpaired, and that His Sublime etcetera would enjoy long life and
+peaceful reign, managing, by a trick of Konkrookan grammar, to imply
+that the second would be conditional upon the first. The Keegarkan
+Ambassador then spoke his piece, expressing on behalf of King Orgzild
+the deepest regret that the people of the Company should be so
+molested, and managing to hint that things like that simply didn't
+happen at Keegark.
+
+The Prince Gorkrink then spoke briefly, in sympathy for the great and
+good friend of all Ulleran peoples, Mohammed Ferriera, who had been
+injured, and hoping that he would soon enjoy full health again. He
+also managed to convey King Orgzild's pleasure at having obtained the
+plutonium. Von Schlichten noticed that a few of his more recent
+quartz-specks were slightly greenish in tinge, a sure sign that he
+had, not long ago, been exposed to the fluorine-tainted air which men
+and geeks alike breathed on Niflheim. When a geek prince hired out as
+a laborer for a year on Niflheim, he did so for only one purpose--to
+learn Terran technologies.
+
+Gurgurk then announced that so enormous a crime against the friends of
+His Sublime etcetera had not been allowed to go unpunished, signaling
+behind him with one of his lower hands for the box to be brought
+forward. The slaves carried it to the front, set it down, and opened
+it, taking from it a rug which they spread on the floor. On this, from
+the box, they placed twenty-four newly severed opal-grinning heads, in
+four neat rows. They had all been freshly scrubbed and polished, but
+they still smelled like crushed cockroaches.
+
+The three Terrans looked at them gravely. A double-dozen heads was
+standard payment for an attack in which no Terran had been killed.
+Ostensibly, they were the heads of the ringleaders: in practice, they
+were usually lopped from the first two-dozen prisoners or over-age
+slaves at hand, without regard for whether the victims had even heard
+of the crime which they were expiating. If the Extraterrestrial's
+Rights Association were really serious about the rights of these
+geeks, they'd advocate booting out all these native princes and
+turning the whole planet over to the Company. That had been the Terran
+Federation's idea, from the beginning; why else give the Company's
+chief representative the title of Governor-General?
+
+There was another long speech from Gurgurk, with the nobles behind him
+murmuring antiphonal agreement--standard procedure, for which there
+was a standard pun, geek chorus--and a speech of response from Sid
+Harrington. Standing stiffly through the whole rigamarole, von
+Schlichten waited for it to end, as finally it did.
+
+They walked back from the door, whence they had escorted the
+delegation, and stood looking down at the saurian heads on the rug.
+Harrington raised his voice and called to a Kragan sergeant whose
+chevrons 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're
+welcome to them."
+
+"Wait a moment," von Schlichten told the sergeant. Then he disgorged
+and pouched his geek-speaker. "See that head, there?" he asked,
+rolling it over with his toe. "I killed that geek, myself, with my
+pistol, while Them and Hid were getting Ferriera into the car. Miss
+Quinton killed that one with the bolo; see where she chopped him on
+the 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 walked
+around the rug, turning heads over with his foot. "This was cut-rate
+head-payment; they just slashed off two-dozen heads at the scene of
+the riot. I don't like this butchery of worn-out slaves and petty
+thieves any better than anybody else, but this I don't like either.
+Six months ago, Gurgurk wouldn't have tried to pull anything like
+this. Now he's laughing up his non-existent sleeve at us."
+
+"That's what I've been preaching, all along," Eric Blount took up
+after him. "These geeks need having the fear of Terra thrown into
+them."
+
+"Oh, nonsense, Eric; you're just as bad as Carlos, here!" Harrington
+tut-tutted. "Next, you'll be saying that we ought to depose Jaikark
+and 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 of
+Jaikark's like fast neutrons through toilet-paper."
+
+"My God!" Harrington exploded. "Don't let me hear that kind of talk
+again! We're not _conquistadores_; we're employees of a business
+concern, here to make money honestly, by exchanging goods and services
+with these people...."
+
+He turned and walked away, out of the Audience Hall, leaving von
+Schlichten and Blount to watch the removal of the geek-heads.
+
+"You know, I went a little too far," von Schlichten confessed. "Or too
+fast, rather. He's got to be conditioned to accept that idea."
+
+"We can't go too slowly, either," Blount replied. "If we wait for him
+to 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 in
+the hide of that Prince Gorkrink?" he asked. "He's just come back from
+Niflheim. 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. You
+know, four of our best native Intelligence operatives have been
+murdered in Keegark in the last three months, and six more have just
+vanished there."
+
+"Well, I'm going there in a few days, myself, to talk to Orgzild about
+this spaceport deal," Blount said. "I'll have a talk with Hendrik
+Lemoyne and MacKinnon. And I'll see what I can find out for myself."
+
+"Well, let's go have a drink," von Schlichten suggested, consulting
+his 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 if
+slightly 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, von
+Schlichten dialed the cocktail they had decided upon and inserted his
+key to charge the drinks to his account, filling a four-portion jug.
+
+As they turned away, they almost collided with Hideyoshi O'Leary and
+Paula Quinton. The girl wore a long-sleeved gown to conceal a bandage
+on 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," he
+greeted her. "Feel better, now?... Miss Quinton, this is
+Lieutenant-Governor Blount. Eric, Miss Paula Quinton."
+
+"Delighted, Miss Quinton," Blount said. "Carlos tells us he found you
+standing over poor Mohammed Ferriera, fighting like a commando. How is
+Mohammed, by the way? No danger, I hope; we all like him."
+
+Mohammed Ferriera was still unconscious, the girl reported; he had a
+minor concussion, but the medics were not greatly disturbed, and
+expected him to be fully recovered in a few weeks. Von Schlichten
+invited her and her escort to join him and Blount. Colonel O'Leary was
+carrying a cocktail jug and a couple of glasses; finding a table out
+of the worst of the noise, they all sat down together.
+
+"I suppose you think it's a joke, our being nearly murdered by the
+people we came to help," Paula began, a trifle defensively.
+
+"Not a very funny joke," von Schlichten told her. "It's been played on
+us 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 the
+way they do. You know, that's a nasty name; in the First Century
+Pre-Atomic, it designated a degraded person who performed some sort of
+revolting public exhibition...."
+
+"Biting off live chickens' heads, in a sideshow wild-man act,"
+Hideyoshi O'Leary supplied. "When you get up north, watch how the
+peasants kill these little things like six-legged iguanas that they
+raise 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. Even
+in the absence of any native, she used her handkerchief to mask the
+act.
+
+"Suddabit," she said, distinctly. "Sud-da-a-bit." Taking out the
+geek-speaker, she put it away. "Why, that's exactly how they'd
+pronounce it!"
+
+"And don't tell me you haven't heard it before," O'Leary said. "The
+geeks were screaming it at you, over on Seventy-second Street, this
+afternoon. _Znidd suddabit_; kill the Terrans. That's Rakkeed the
+Prophet's whole gospel."
+
+"So you see," Eric Blount rammed home the moral, "this is just another
+case of nobody with any right to call anybody else's kettle black....
+Cigarette?"
+
+"Thank you." She leaned toward the lighter-flame O'Leary had snapped
+into being. "I suspect that of being a principle you'd like me to bear
+in mind at the polar mines, when I see, let's say, some laborer being
+beaten by a couple of overseers with three foot lengths of
+three-quarter-inch steel cable."
+
+"Well, you could also remember that a native's skin is about half an
+inch thick, and a good deal tougher than a human's," von Schlichten
+told her. "And it wouldn't hurt any if you found out how these
+laborers are treated at home. Mostly they're serfs hired from the big
+landowners; it's a fact you can easily verify that permission to join
+the labor-companies at the polar mines is regarded as a privilege,
+granted as a reward or denied as a punishment. And most of the geek
+landowners are bitterly critical of the way we treat our labor at the
+mines; they claim we make them dissatisfied with the treatment they
+get at home."
+
+"Of course, they're always glad to have the peasants taken off their
+hands during a slack agricultural season," Blount added, "and we train
+workers to handle contragravity power-equipment. I won't deny that
+there's a lot of unnecessary brutality on the part of the native
+foremen and overseers, which we're trying, gradually, to eliminate.
+You'll have to remember, though, that we're dealing with a naturally
+brutal race."
+
+"Of course, mistreatment of native labor is always blamed on other
+natives, never on the gentle and kindly Terrans," she replied. "That's
+been 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 did
+you run into there?"
+
+"Well, I must admit, the Ullerans who work there are very well
+treated. Except that I don't think it's right to employ any people
+with silicone body-tissues where they're going to breathe
+fluorine-tainted air."
+
+"Nobody ought to be employed on that planet!" Hideyoshi O'Leary
+declared. "I did a two-year hitch there, when I was first commissioned
+in the Company service."
+
+"I put in two years there, too," Blount supported him. "And I might
+add that that's a year longer than any Ulleran native is ever allowed
+to spend on Niflheim. You know what the setup is, there, don't you?
+The Terran Federation Space Navy discovered and explored both Uller
+and Niflheim, which made both planets public domain. The Company was
+originally formed to exploit Uller alone, but the Federation insisted
+that both planets would have to be franchised to the same company.
+They wanted Niflheim exploited, mainly because of the uranium-deposits
+there. As it turned out, the Company's making as much money out of
+Niflheim 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 hundred
+geeks, all employed on construction-work and in the mines, on the
+planet itself, working directly under Terran supervision. We use them
+because they have four hands, and in the power-driven contragravity
+armor that's necessary there, they can manipulate more controls and do
+more 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 do
+supervisory work. So we have to use native foremen, and they're guilty
+of what mistreatment the workers suffer."
+
+"And remember, too," O'Leary added, "work at the polar mines can only
+go on for about two months out of the year--mid-September to
+mid-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 mineral
+deposits in places where you can work all year 'round?"
+
+"Not as rich, or as accessible," Blount said. "You know what the
+seasons are like, at the poles of this planet. The temperature will
+range from about two-fifty Fahrenheit in mid-summer to a hundred and
+fifty below in winter. There's the most intense sort of thermal
+erosion 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 be
+violent circular storms of hot wind, blowing away the light sand and
+dust and leaving the heavier particles of metallic ores and metals
+behind. 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 from
+the surface, load it onto ore-boats, and fly it down to Skilk and
+Krink and Grank, where it's smelted through the winter. The natives
+run the smelters; use the heat to thaw frozen food for themselves and
+their 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 themselves
+ill-treated, you might propose closing them down entirely and see what
+the native reaction would be," von Schlichten told her. "Independently
+hired free workers can make themselves rich, by native standards, in a
+couple of seasons; many of the serfs pick up enough money from us in
+incentive-pay to buy their freedom after one season."
+
+"Well, if the Company's doing so much good on this planet, how is it
+that this native, Rakkeed, the one you call the Mad Prophet, is able
+to find such a following?" Paula demanded. "There must be something
+wrong somewhere."
+
+"That's a fair question," Blount replied, inverting a cocktail jug
+over his glass to extract the last few drops. "When we came to Uller,
+we found a culture roughly like that of Europe during the Seventh
+Century Pre-Atomic, or, more closely, like that of Japan before the
+beginning of the First Century P. A. We initiated a technological and
+economic revolution here, and such revolutions have their casualties,
+too. A number of classes and groups got squeezed pretty badly, like
+the horse-breeders and harness-manufacturers on Terra by the invention
+of the automobile, or the coal and hydroelectric interests when direct
+conversion of nuclear energy to electric current was developed, or
+the railroads and steamship lines at the time of the discovery of the
+contragravity-field. Naturally, there's a lot of ill-feeling on the
+part of merchants and artisans who weren't able or willing to adapt
+themselves to changing conditions; they're all backing Rakkeed and
+yelling '_Znidd suddabit!_' now. You know, it's a shame that geek
+messiah isn't a smart crook, instead of an honest fanatic; he could
+take in the equivalent of a couple of million sols a year off the
+North Uller merchants and the Equatorial Zone shipowners. But it is a
+fact, which not even Rakkeed can successfully deny, that we've raised
+the general living standard of this planet by about two hundred
+percent."
+
+"Rakkeed is a Zirk," von Schlichten said. "They're the nomads who hire
+out to the northern merchants as caravan-drivers, and also prey, or
+used to prey, on the caravans as brigands. Since our air-freighters
+got into operation, neither caravan-driving nor caravan-raiding has
+been a paying business, and our air-patrols have made caravan-raiding
+suicidal as well. So the Zirks don't like us. The only thing they know
+or are willing to learn is handling these six-legged riding-and
+pack-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_, and
+the 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 the
+caravan-trade, we're spoiling their local business, because the
+land-owning barons, who used to deal with them, are now dealing
+directly with us. At Skilk, King Firkked's afraid his feudal nobility
+is going to try to force a Runnymede on him, so he's been currying
+favor with the urban merchants; that makes him as pro-Rakkeed and as
+anti-Terran as they are. At Krink, King Jonkvank has the support of
+his barons, but he's afraid of his urban bourgeoisie, and we pay him a
+handsome 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 as
+bloody-minded an old murderer as you'd care not to meet in a dark
+alley anywhere."
+
+"We can turn our backs on him and not expect a knife between our
+shoulders, anyhow," von Schlichten said. "And we can believe, oh, up
+to eighty percent of what he tells us, and that's sixty percent better
+than any of the other native princes, except King Kankad, of course.
+The Kragans are the only real friends we have on this planet." He
+thought for a moment. "Miss Quinton, are you doing sociographic
+research-work here, in addition to your Ex-Rights work?" he asked.
+"Well, let me advise you to pay some attention to the Kragans. You'll
+only find them treated at any length at all in that compendium of
+misinformation, Willard Stanley-Browne's _Short Sociographic History
+of Beta Hydrae II_, and ninety percent of what Stanley-Browne says
+about them is completely erroneous."
+
+"Oh, but they're just a parasite-race on the Terrans," Dr. Paula
+Quinton objected. "You find races like that all through the explored
+galaxy--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 think
+she's run into many Kragans. We ought to take her over and introduce
+her to King Kankad."
+
+Von Schlichten allowed himself to be smitten by an idea. "By Allah, so
+we 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 cleared
+up here and be ready to leave by 0800 Tuesday? That's four days from
+today."
+
+"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 a
+battalion of Kragan Rifles for duty at the polar mines, where you're
+going. 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 about
+two to three hours. If you think the Kragans are 'pathetic cultural
+mongrels,' what you'll see there will open your eyes. And I might add
+that the nearest Stanley-Browne ever came to seeing Kankad's Town was
+from the air, once, at a distance of four miles."
+
+"Well, they live entirely by serving as mercenary soldiers for the
+Uller Company, don't they?"
+
+"More or less. You see, when we came to Uller, they were barbarian
+brigands; had a string of forts along caravan-roads and at fords and
+mountain-passes, and levied tolls. They raided into Konkrook and
+Keegark territory, too. Well, we had to break that up. We fought a
+little war with them, beat them rather badly in a couple of
+skirmishes, and then made a deal with them. That was before my time,
+when old Jerry Kirke was Governor-General. He negotiated a treaty with
+their King, bought their rievers'-forts outright, and paid them a
+subsidy to compensate for loss of tolls and raid-spoil, and agreed to
+employ the whole tribe as soldiers. We've taught them a lot--you'll
+see how much when you visit their town--but they aren't cultural
+mongrels. You'll like them."
+
+"Well, general, I'll take you up," she said. "But I warn you; if this
+is some scheme to indoctrinate me with the Uller Company's side of the
+case and blind me to unjust exploitation of the natives here, I don't
+propagandize very easily."
+
+"Fair enough, as long as you don't let fear of being propagandized
+blind you to the good we're doing here, or impair your ability to
+observe and draw accurate conclusions. Just stay scientific about it
+and I'll be satisfied. Now, let's take time out for lubrication," he
+said, filling her glass and passing the jug.
+
+Two hours and five cocktails later, they were still at the table, and
+they had taught Paula Quinton some twenty verses of _The Heathen
+Geeks, 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 Terran
+green of the farms, and the spaceport with its ring of mooring-pylons
+empty since the _City of Pretoria_ had lifted out, two days before,
+for Terra, was dropping away behind. Von Schlichten held his lighter
+for Paula Quinton, then lit his own cigarette.
+
+"I was rather horrified, Friday afternoon, at the way you and Colonel
+O'Leary and Mr. Blount were blaspheming against Stanley-Browne," she
+said. "His book is practically the sociographers' Koran for this
+planet. But I've been checking up, since, and I find that everybody
+who's been here any length of time seems to deride it, and it's full
+of the most surprising misstatements. I'm either going to make myself
+famous or get burned at the stake by the Extraterrestrial Sociographic
+Society after I get back to Terra. In the last three months, I've been
+really too busy with Ex-Rights work to do much research, but I'm
+beginning to think there's a great deal in Stanley-Browne's book that
+will have to be reconsidered."
+
+"How'd you get into this, Miss Quinton?" he asked.
+
+"You mean sociography, or Ex-Rights? Well, my father and my
+grandfather were both extraterrestrial sociographers--anthropologists
+whose subjects aren't anthropomorphic--and I majored in sociography
+at the University of Montevideo. And I've always been in sympathy
+with extraterrestrial races; one of my great-grandmothers was a
+Freyan."
+
+"The deuce; I'd never have guessed that, as small and dark as you
+are."
+
+"Well, another of my great-grandmothers was Japanese," she replied.
+"The family name's French. I'm also part Spanish, part Russian, part
+Italian, part English ... the usual modern Argentine mixture."
+
+"I'm an Argentino, too. From La Rioja, over along the Sierra de
+Velasco. My family lived there for the past five centuries. They came
+to 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 what
+was then known as a war-criminal."
+
+"That makes us partners in crime, then," she laughed. "The Quintons
+had to leave France about the same time; they were what was known as
+collaborationists."
+
+"That's probably why the Southern Hemisphere managed to stay out of
+the Third and Fourth World Wars," he considered. "It was full of the
+descendants of people who'd gotten the short end of the Second."
+
+"Do you speak the Kragan language, general?" she asked. "I understand
+it's entirely different from the other Equatorial Ulleran languages."
+
+"Yes. That's what gives the Kragans an entirely different semantic
+orientation. For instance, they have nothing like a subject-predicate
+sentence structure. That's why, Stanley-Browne to the contrary
+notwithstanding, they are entirely non-religious. Their language
+hasn't instilled in them a predisposition to think of everything as
+the result of an action performed by an agent. And they have no
+definite parts of speech; any word can be used as any part of speech,
+depending on context. Tense is applied to words used as nouns, not
+words used as verbs; there are four tenses--spatial-temporal present,
+things here-and-now; spatial present and temporal remote, things which
+were 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 the
+Keene-Gonzales-Dillingham Theory and the older Einstein Theory to King
+Kankad once, and it was beautiful to watch how he picked it up. Half
+the time, he was a jump ahead of me."
+
+The aircar began losing altitude and speed as they came in over
+Kraggork Swamp; the treetops below blended into a level plain of
+yellow-green, pierced by glints of stagnant water underneath and
+broken by an occasional low hillock, sometimes topped by a stockaded
+village.
+
+"Those are the swamp-savages' homes," he told her. "Most of what you
+find in Stanley-Browne about them is fairly accurate. He spent a lot
+of time among them. He never seems to have realized, though, that they
+are living now as they have ever since the first appearance of
+intelligent 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 to
+exterminate," he replied. "You see, at one time, the dominant type of
+mobile land-life was the thing we call a shellosaur, a big thing,
+running from five to fifteen tons, plated all over with silicate
+shell, till it looked like a six-legged pine-cone. Some were
+herbivores and some were carnivores. There are a few left, in remote
+places--quite a few in the Southern Hemisphere, which we haven't
+explored very much. They were a satisfied life-form. Outside of a
+volcano or an earthquake or an avalanche, nothing could hurt a
+shellosaur but a bigger shellosaur.
+
+"Finally, of course, they grew beyond their sustenance-limit, but in
+the meantime, some of them began specializing on mobility instead of
+armor and began excreting waste-matter instead of turning it to shell.
+Some of these new species got rid of their shell entirely. _Parahomo
+sapiens Ulleris_ is descended from one of these.
+
+"The shellosaurs were still a serious menace, though. The ancestors of
+the present Ulleran, the proto-geeks, when they were at about the Java
+Ape-Man stage of development, took two divergent courses to escape the
+shellosaurs. Some of them took to the swamps, where the shellosaurs
+would sink if they tried to follow. Those savages, down there, are
+still living in the same manner; they never progressed. Others
+encountered problems of survival which had to be overcome by
+invention. They progressed to barbarism, like the people of the
+fishing-villages, and some of them progressed to civilization, like
+the Konkrookans and the Keegarkans.
+
+"Then, there were others who took to the high rocks, where the
+shellosaurs couldn't climb. The Jeels are the primitive, original
+example of that. Most of the North Uller civilizations developed from
+mountaineer-savages, and so did the Zirks and the other northern
+plains nomads."
+
+"Well, how about the Kragans?" Paula asked. "Which were they?"
+
+Von Schlichten was scanning the horizon ahead. He pulled over a pair
+of fifty-power binoculars on a swinging arm and put them where she
+could use them.
+
+"Right ahead, there; just a little to the left. See that brown-gray
+spot 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's
+Town. You might say, even the same Kankad. The Kragan kings have
+always provided their own heirs, by self-fertilization. That's a
+complicated process, involving simultaneous male and female
+masturbation, but the offspring is an exact duplicate of the single
+parent. The present Kankad speaks of his heir as 'Little Me,' which is
+a fairly accurate way of putting it."
+
+He knew what she was seeing through the glasses--a massive butte of
+flint, jutting out into the swamp on the end of a sharp ridge, with a
+city on top of it. All the buildings were multi-storied, some piling
+upward from the top and some clinging to the sides. The high
+watchtower at the front now carried a telecast-director, aimed at an
+automatic relay-station on an unmanned orbiter two thousand miles
+off-planet.
+
+"They're either swamp-people who moved up onto that rock, or they're
+mountaineers who came out that far along the ridge and stopped," she
+said. "Which?"
+
+"Nobody's ever tried to find out. Maybe if you stay on Uller long
+enough, you can. That ought to be good for about eight to ten honorary
+doctorates. And maybe a hundred sols a year in book royalties."
+
+"Maybe I'll just do that, general.... What's that, on the little
+island over there?" she asked, shifting the glasses. "A clump of
+flat-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 also
+make TNT and catastrophite, and propellants. Learned that from us, of
+course. They also manufacture most of their own firearms, some of them
+pretty 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 in
+weight-lifting. They can't run, or jump, as well as we can. We often
+come out here for games with the Kragans, where the geeks can't watch
+us. And that reminds me--you're right about that being a term of
+derogation, because I don't believe I've ever knowingly spoken of a
+Kragan as a geek, and in fact they've picked up the word from us and
+apply it to all non-Kragans. But as I was saying, our baseball team
+has to give theirs a handicap, but their football team can beat the
+daylights out of ours. In a tug-of-war, we have to put two men on our
+end for every one of theirs. But they don't even try to play tennis
+with us."
+
+"Don't the other natives make their own firearms?"
+
+"No, and we're not going to teach them how. The thalassic peoples here
+in the Equatorial Zone are fairly good empirical, teaspoon-measure,
+chemists. Well, no, alchemists. They found out how to make
+nitroglycerine, and use it for blasting and for bombs and mines, and
+they screw little capsules of it on the ends of their arrows. Most of
+their chemistry, such as it is, was learned in trying to prevent
+organic materials, like wood, from petrifying. Up in the north, where
+it gets cold, they learned a lot about metallurgy and ceramics, and
+about forced-draft pneumatics, from having to keep fires going all
+winter to thaw frozen food. They make air-rifles, to shoot metal
+darts."
+
+The aircar came in, circling slowly over the town on the big rock, and
+let down on the roof of the castle-like building from which the
+watchtower rose. There were a dozen or so individuals waiting for
+them--the five Terrans, three men and two women, from the telecast
+station, and the rest Kragans. One of these, dark-skinned but with
+speckles no darker than light amber, armed only with a heavy dagger,
+came over and clapped von Schlichten on the shoulder, grinning
+opalescently.
+
+"Greetings, Von!" he squawked in Kragan, then, seeing Paula, switched
+over to the customary language of the Takkad Sea country. "It makes
+happiness 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. "Two
+hours and a half ... Kankad, this is Paula Quinton; Paula, King
+Kankad."
+
+He took out his geek-speaker and crammed it into his mouth. Before any
+other race on Uller, that would have been the most shocking sort of
+bad manners, without the token-concealment of the handkerchief. Kankad
+took it as a matter of course. At some length, von Schlichten
+explained the nature of Paula's sociographic work, her connection with
+the Extraterrestrials' Rights Association, and her intention of going
+to the Arctic mines. Kankad nodded.
+
+"You were right," he said. "I wouldn't have understood all that in
+your language. If I had read it, maybe, but not if I heard it." He put
+his upper right hand on Paula's shoulder and uttered a clicking
+approximation of her name. "I make you one of us," he told her. "You
+must come back, after the work stops at the mines; if you want to
+learn about my people, I'll show you what you want to see, and tell
+you what you want to know. But why not stay here? Why bother about
+those geeks at the mines; the Company treats them much better than
+they deserve. Stay here with us; we will make you happy to be with
+us."
+
+Paula replied slowly: "I thank Kankad, but I must go. Those on Terra
+who sent me here want me to learn for myself how the workers at the
+mines are treated. But I will come back--in a hundred, a hundred and
+fifty 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 wore
+the equipment and insignia of a Company native-major and was freshly
+painted with the Company emblem. "This is Kormork. He and I have borne
+young to each other. Kormork, you watch over Paula Quinton." He
+managed, 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 Schlichten
+introduced the Terrans from the telecast-station. Then Kankad looked
+at the watch he was wearing on his lower left wrist.
+
+"We will have plenty of time, before the ship comes, to show Paula the
+town," he suggested. "Von, you know better than I do what she would
+like to see."
+
+He led the way past a pair of long 90-mm guns to a stone stairway. Von
+Schlichten explained, as they went down, that the guns of King
+Kankad's Town were the only artillery above 75-mm on Uller in
+non-Terran hands. They climbed into an open machine-gun carrier and
+strapped themselves to their seats, and for two hours King Kankad
+showed her the sights of the town. They visited the school, where
+young Kragans were being taught to read Lingua Terra and studied from
+textbooks printed in Johannesburg and Sydney and Buenos Aires. Kankad
+showed her the repair-shops, where two-score descendants of Kragan
+riever-chieftains were working on contragravity equipment, under the
+supervision of a Scottish-Afrikaner and his Malay-Portuguese wife; the
+small-arms factory, where very respectable copies of Terran rifles and
+pistols and auto-weapons were being turned out; the machine-shop; the
+physics and chemistry labs; the hospital; the ammunition-loading
+plant; 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; the
+printing-shop and book-bindery; the observatory, with a big telescope
+and an ingenious orrery of the Beta Hydrae system; the nuclear-power
+plant, part of the original price for giving up brigandage.
+
+Half an hour before the ship from Konkrook was due, they had arrived
+at the airport, where a gang of Kragans were clearing a berth for the
+_Aldebaran_. From somewhere, Kankad produced two cold bottles of Cape
+Town beer for Paula and von Schlichten, and a bowl of some boiling-hot
+black liquid for himself. Von Schlichten and Paula lit cigarettes;
+between sips of his bubbling hell-brew, Kankad gnawed on the stalk of
+some swamp-plant. Paula seemed as much surprised at Kankad's disregard
+for the eating taboo as she had been at von Schlichten's open flouting
+of the convention of concealment when he had put in his geek-speaker.
+
+"This is the only place on Uller where this happens," von Schlichten
+told her. "Here, or in the field when Terran and Kragan soldiers are
+together. There aren't any taboos between us and the Kragans."
+
+"No," Kankad said. "We cannot eat each others' food, and because our
+bodies are different, we cannot be the fathers of each others' young.
+But we have been battle-comrades, and worksharers, and we have learned
+from each other, my people more from yours than yours from mine.
+Before you came, my people were like children, shooting arrows at
+little animals on the beach, and climbing among the rocks at
+dare-me-and-I-do, and playing war with toy weapons. But we are growing
+up, and it will not be long before we will stand beside you, as the
+grown son stands beside his parent, and when that day comes, you will
+not 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, to
+study," von Schlichten said. "I was talking about it with Sid
+Harrington, only a short while ago. He thinks it would be a good
+thing, for your people and for mine."
+
+"Yes. I want Little Me, when he's old enough to travel, to visit your
+world," Kankad said. "And some of the other young ones. And when
+Little Me is old enough to take over the rule of our people, I would
+like to go to Terra, myself."
+
+"Some day, I am going to return to Terra; I would like to have you
+make the trip with me," von Schlichten said.
+
+"That would be wonderful, Von!" Kankad exclaimed. "I want to see your
+world, before I die. It must be a wonderful place. A world is what its
+people make it, and your people must be able to make anything of your
+world that you would want."
+
+"We almost made a lifeless desert, like the poles of Uller, out of our
+world, once," von Schlichten told him. "Four hundred and more years
+ago, we fought great wars among ourselves, with weapons such as I hope
+will never even be thought of on Uller. Our whole Northern Hemisphere,
+where our greatest nations were, was devastated; much of it is
+wasteland to this day. But we put an end to that folly in time; we
+made one nation out of all our people, and swore never to commit such
+crimes again, and then we built the ships that took us out to the
+stars. But I want you to see our world, and some of the other worlds
+that we have visited, I think you would like it."
+
+"I know I would. And with you to tell me what the things I would see
+meant...." 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 that
+bears young?"
+
+"That's right, Kankad. I never bore any, yet, but that's the kind of
+Terran I am."
+
+"I like Paula," Kankad said. "She has come all the way from Terra to
+help us, and to learn about us. Of course, the Kragans don't need that
+kind of help, and the geeks, who would stick a knife in her as soon as
+she turned her back on them, don't deserve it. But she wants to learn
+about us, just as I want to learn about Terra. Von, why don't you and
+Paula have young?" he asked. "I think that would be fine. Then, Little
+Paula-Von and Little Me could be friends, long after the three of us
+are dead and gone."
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+The Bad News Came After the Coffee
+
+
+The last clatter of silverware and dishes ceased as the native
+servants finished clearing the table. There was a remaining clatter of
+cups and saucers; liqueur-glasses tinkled, and an occasional
+cigarette-lighter clicked. At the head table, the voices seemed
+louder.
+
+"... don't like it a millisol's worth," Brigadier-General Barney
+Mordkovitz, the Skilk military CO, was saying to the lady on his
+right. "They're too confounded meek. Nowadays, nobody yells '_Znidd
+suddabit!_' at you. Nobody sticks all four thumbs in his mouth and
+waves his fingers. Nobody commits nuisance on the sidewalk in front of
+you. They just stand and look at you like a farmer looking at a turkey
+the week before Christmas, and that I don't like!"
+
+"Oh, bosh!" Jules Keaveney, the Skilk Resident-Agent, at the head of
+the table, exclaimed. "You soldiers are all alike--begging your
+pardon, General von Schlichten," he nodded in the direction of the
+guest of honor. "If they don't bow and scrape to you and get off the
+sidewalk 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 certain
+amount of disorder, and a certain minimum show of hostility toward us
+from some of these geeks, to conform to what I know to be our
+unpopularity with many of them. When I don't find it, I want to know
+why."
+
+"I'm inclined," von Schlichten came to his subordinate's support, "to
+agree. This sudden absence of overt hostility is disquieting. Colonel
+Cheng-Li," he called on the local Intelligence officer and
+Constabulary chief. "This fellow Rakkeed was here, about a month ago.
+Was there any noticeable disorder at that time? Anti-Terran
+demonstrations, attacks on Company property or personnel, shooting at
+aircars, that sort of thing?"
+
+"No more than usual, general. In fact, it was when Rakkeed came here
+that the condition General Mordkovitz was speaking of began to become
+conspicuous. We did catch some of Rakkeed's disciples trying to get in
+among the enlisted men of the Tenth N.U.N.I. and the Fifth Zirk
+Cavalry and promote disaffection. That was reported at the time, sir."
+
+"And acted upon, as far as the civil administration would permit," von
+Schlichten replied. "And I might say that Lieutenant-Governor Blount
+has reported from Keegark, where he is now, that the same unnatural
+absence of hostility exists there."
+
+"Well, of course, general," Keaveney said patronizingly. "King Orgzild
+has things under pretty tight control at Keegark. He'd not allow a few
+fanatics to do anything to prejudice these spaceport negotiations."
+
+"I wonder if the idea back of that spaceport proposition isn't to get
+us concentrated at Keegark, where Orgzild could wipe us all out in one
+surprise 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 away
+with it for just twelve months--the time it would take to get the
+news to Terra and for a Federation Space Navy task-force to get here.
+And then, there'd be little bits of radioactive geek floating around
+this system as far out as the orbit of Beta Hydrae VII."
+
+"That's quite true," von Schlichten agreed. "The point is, does
+Orgzild 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 Schlichten
+replied. "Or, rather, the string of orbiters and artificial satellites
+around Niflheim. Where he thinks Niflheim is, I wouldn't even try to
+guess."
+
+"Well, it takes six months for a ship to go between here and Nif,"
+Prinsloo considered. "Because of the hyperdrive effects, the
+experienced time of the voyage, inside the ship, is of the order of
+three weeks. Taking that as the figure, he'd estimate the distance at
+about a quarter-million miles, assuming the velocity as being the
+speed of one of our contragravity-ships here on Uller. I'm assuming he
+doesn't even know there is a hyperdrive."
+
+"Yes. After he'd wiped us out, he might even consider the idea of an
+invasion of Niflheim with captured contragravity ships," Hideyoshi
+O'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 was
+still derisive, but under the derision was uncertainty. After all, von
+Schlichten 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 Schlichten
+finished his brandy and got out cigarette-case and lighter. "I have
+an idea of the sort of garbled reports these spies of his who spend a
+year on Niflheim as laborers bring back."
+
+"You know the line Rakkeed's been taking, of course," Colonel Cheng-Li
+put in. "He as much as says that Niflheim's our home, and that the
+farms where we raise food here, and those evergreen plantings on Konk
+Isthmus and between here and Grank are the beginning of an attempt to
+drive all native life from this planet and make it over for
+ourselves."
+
+"And that savage didn't think an idea like that up for himself; he got
+it from somebody like Orgzild," the black-bearded brigadier-general
+added. "You know, the main base off Niflheim is practically
+self-supporting, with hydroponic-gardens and animal-tissue culture
+vats. And it's enough bigger than one of the _City_ ships to pass for
+a 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 his
+cigarette and held his lighter for hers. "You saw that big Beta Hydrae
+orrery at Kankad's observatory. Well, there's quite a little story
+about that. You know, it's generally realized by the natives here that
+Uller is a globe. The North Zirks have ridden all the way around it,
+on hipposaur-back, in the high latitudes, and the thalassic peoples at
+the Equator have sailed all the five equatorial seas and portaged all
+the isthmuses between. But, of course, Uller is the center of the
+universe; the sun travels around it, on a rather complicated
+double-spiral track. As a theory, it explains most of what they're
+able to observe, and any minor effects that don't conform to it are
+just ignored. They have a model, a most ingenious affair run by
+clockwork, at the University of Konkrook, to show the apparent
+movement and position of Beta Hydrae in the sky; it does so fairly
+accurately.
+
+"Well, some of our astronomers constructed this orrery, and exhibited
+it to a gathering of the leading native scholars, who are also the
+high-priests of the local religion. Sort of combined Academy of Arts
+and Sciences and College of Cardinals. They almost were massacred. As
+soon as the assembled pundits saw this thing and grasped its meaning,
+they began geeking and skreeking and yorking and squawking and
+brandishing knives--it was blasphemous, and sacrilegious, and
+undermined 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 the
+University, I hustled around with a company of Kragans, and we cleared
+the hall with the bayonet and ran the reverend professors out onto the
+campus, and after we got things in hand, the Kragans crowded around
+the orrery, trying to set it up to show the existing position of the
+planet relative to the primary and figure out the theory back of it.
+They were very much interested; some of them must have sent word home
+about 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's
+one of his most cherished possessions, but the Konkrook pundits bite
+all four thumbs and wave their fingers every time they think of it."
+He warmed his coffee from a controlled-temperature pot. "You can't use
+Kragan thinking on any subject as a criterion of what somebody like
+Orgzild's opinions will be."
+
+"I never could understand the admiration some of you military people
+have for those cutthroats," Keaveney declared. "Oh, yes, I can. You
+like 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? Still
+think the Kragans are cultural mongrels?"
+
+"Why, they're wonderful! I never expected anything like it. They just
+seem to have picked up everything they could from us, and then gone on
+from there to develop a culture of their own with our techniques. For
+instance, those big guns, the ones they call the Ridge Battery, that
+they built for themselves. They aren't copies of Terran guns. They
+don't look like our work, or give you the feel our work would. And
+that telescope at the observatory," she continued. "Did they build
+that, too?"
+
+"Yes, all we furnished was a couple of textbooks on lens-grinding and
+telescope-design, and a book on optics. You see, when we made that
+deal with them, they realized that we weren't any better fighters than
+they were; we just had better weapons. To have the same kind of
+weapons, they'd have to learn to make them, and once they began
+studying technology, they found that they had to study science.
+Weapon-making was the entering-wedge; after that, they found that they
+could use the same skills to make anything else they wanted. Give them
+another century or so and they'll be one of the great races of the
+galaxy."
+
+"Yes, and it's a good thing they're our friends, too," Mordkovitz
+added. "I'm only sorry there are so few of them, and so many of the
+geeks."
+
+"Yes, the Company ought to let us stockpile nuclear weapons here, just
+to 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 in
+among the convicts to carry firearms. If somebody like Orgzild got
+hold of a nuclear bomb, even a little old First-Century H-bomb, he
+could use it for a model and construct a hundred like it, with all the
+plutonium we've been handing out for power reactors. And there are too
+few of us, and we're concentrated in too few places, to last long if
+that happened. What this planet needs, though, is a visit by a
+fifty-odd-ship task-force of the Space Navy, just to show the geeks
+what 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 too
+much of this mailed-fist-and-rattling-saber stuff from some of the
+junior officers here, without your giving countenance and
+encouragement to it. We're here to earn dividends for the stockholders
+of the Uller Company, and we can only do that by gaining the
+friendship, respect and confidence of the natives...."
+
+"Mr. Keaveney," Paula Quinton spoke up. "I doubt if even you would
+seriously accuse the Extraterrestrials' Rights Association of favoring
+what you call a mailed-fist-and-rattling-saber policy. We've done
+everything in our power to help these people, and if anybody should
+have their friendship, we should. Well, only five days ago, in
+Konkrook, Mr. Mohammed Ferriera and I were attacked by a mob, our
+native aircar driver was murdered, and if it hadn't been for General
+von Schlichten and his soldiers, we'd have lost our own lives. Mr.
+Ferriera is still hospitalized as a result of injuries he received. It
+seems that General von Schlichten and his Kragans aren't trying to
+get friendship and confidence; they're willing to settle for respect,
+in the only way they can get it--by hitting harder and quicker than
+the 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 to
+winking at Paula. Good girl, he thought; she's started playing on the
+Army team!
+
+"Well, of course...." Keaveney began. Then he stopped, as a Terran
+sergeant came up to the table and bent over Barney Mordkovitz'
+shoulder, whispering urgently. The black-bearded brigadier rose
+immediately, taking his belt from the back of his chair and putting it
+on. Motioning the sergeant to accompany him, he spoke briefly to
+Keaveney 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. "Sid
+Harrington'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 radioprint
+slip. "Came in ten minutes ago."
+
+It was an all-station priority telecast. Governor-General Harrington
+had died suddenly, in his room, at 2210; there were no details. He
+glanced at his watch; it was 2243. Konkrook and Skilk were in the same
+time-zone; that was fast work. He handed the slip to Mordkovitz, who
+gave it to Keaveney.
+
+"You from the telecast station, sergeant?" he asked. "All right, let's
+go."
+
+"Wait a minute, general." Keaveney put out a hand to detain him as he
+took his belt and put it on. "How about this?" He gestured nervously
+with the radioprint slip.
+
+"Get up and make an announcement, now," von Schlichten told him,
+fastening the buckle and hitching his pistol and survival-kit into
+place. "It'll be out all over the planet in half an hour. Never hold
+news out unnecessarily." He stubbed out his cigarette. "Come on,
+sergeant."
+
+As he hurried from the banquet-room, he could hear Keaveney tapping on
+his wine-glass.
+
+"Everybody, please! Let me have your attention! There has just come in
+a piece of the most tragic news...."
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+Bismillah! How Dumb Can We Get?
+
+
+The lights had come on inside the semicircular and now open
+storm-porch of Company House, but it was still daylight outside. The
+sky above the mountain to the west was fading from crimson to
+burnt-orange, and a couple of the brighter stars were winking into
+visibility. Von Schlichten and the sergeant hurried a hundred yards
+down the street between low, thick-walled office buildings to the
+telecast station, next to the Administration Building.
+
+A woman captain met him just inside the door of the big soundproofed
+room.
+
+"We have a wavelength open to Konkrook, general," she said. "In booth
+three."
+
+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 the
+image of a third young woman, a lieutenant, at Konkrook station. The
+sergeant rose and started to leave the booth.
+
+"Stick around, sergeant," von Schlichten told her. "I'll want you to
+take over when I'm through." He sat down in front of the combination
+visiscreen and pickup. "Now, lieutenant, just what happened?" he
+asked. "How did he die?"
+
+"We think it was poison, general. General M'zangwe has ordered autopsy
+and chemical analysis. If you can wait about ten minutes, he'll be
+able 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 hunting
+in the morning. I suppose you know his usual routine?"
+
+Von Schlichten nodded. Harrington would have taken a shower, put on
+his 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 Kragan
+guard-sergeant on that floor heard ten pistol-shots, as fast as they
+could 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 Governor
+Harrington on the floor, wearing only his gown, holding an empty
+pistol. He was in convulsions, frothing at the mouth, in horrible
+pain. Evidently he'd fired his pistol, which he kept on his desk, to
+call help; all the bullets had gone into the ceiling. The sergeant
+punched the emergency button, beside the bed, and reported, then tried
+to help the governor, but it was too late. One of the medics got there
+in five minutes, just as he was dying. He'd written his diary up to
+noon of today, and broken off in the middle of a word. There was a
+bottle and an overturned glass on his desk. The Constabulary got there
+a few minutes later, and then Brigadier-General M'zangwe took charge.
+A white rat, given fifteen drops from the whiskey-bottle, died with
+the 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 hour
+earlier, trying to slip off the island without a pass; they were
+holding him at the guardhouse when Governor Harrington died. He's now
+being questioned by the Kragans." The girl's face was bleakly
+remorseless. "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 girl
+said. "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 of
+it.
+
+"I heard what happened, how they found him, and about that geek
+chamber-valet being arrested," von Schlichten said. "Did you get
+anything out of him?"
+
+"He's admitted putting poison in the bottle, but he claims it was his
+own 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 those
+rabbits!"
+
+Five thousand miles away, in Konkrook, Themistocles M'zangwe whistled.
+
+"_Bismillah_! How dumb can we get?" he cried. "Of course they'd need
+terrestrial animals, to find out what would poison a Terran! Wait a
+minute; I'll make a note of that, to spring on this geek, if the
+Kragans haven't finished him by now." Von Schlichten watched M'zangwe
+pick 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 we
+can't reach him."
+
+"Well, who's in charge at Konkrook, now?"
+
+"Not much of anybody. Laviola, the Fiscal Secretary, and Hans
+Meyerstein, the Banking Cartel's lawyer, and Howlett, the Personnel
+Chief, and Buhrmann, the Commercial Secretary, have made up a sort of
+quadrumvirate and are trying to run things. I don't know what would
+happen if anything came up suddenly...." A blue-gray uniformed arm,
+with a major's cuff-braid, came into the screen, handing a slip of
+paper to M'zangwe; he took it, glanced at it, and swore. Von
+Schlichten waited until he had read it through.
+
+"Well, something has, all right," the African said. "We just got a
+call from Jaikark's Palace--a revolt's broken out, presumably headed
+by Gurgurk; Household Guards either mutinied or wiped out by the
+mutineers, 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. The
+native-lieutenant in charge of the Kragans just radioed in; says the
+situation is desperate."
+
+"When a Kragan says that, he means damn near hopeless. Is this being
+recorded?" When M'zangwe nodded, he continued: "All right. Use the
+recording for your authority and take charge. I'm declaring martial
+rule 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'm
+leaving for Konkrook at once; I ought to get in by 0800.
+
+"Now, as to the trouble at the Palace. Don't commit more than one
+company of Kragans and ten airjeeps and four combat-cars, and tell
+them to evacuate Jaikark and his followers and our Kragans to Gongonk
+Island. And alert your whole force. These geek palace revolutions are
+always synchronized with street-rioting, and this thing seems to have
+been synchronized with Sid Harrington's death, too. Get our Kragans
+out if you can't save anybody else from the Palace, but sacrificing
+thirty or forty men to save twenty is no kind of business. And keep
+sending 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 coming
+in."
+
+He rose and left the booth. If we can pull Jaikark's bacon off the
+fire, he was thinking, the Company can dictate its own terms to him
+afterward; 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 step
+toward getting rid of all these geek despots. And with Eric Blount as
+Governor-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 from
+Gurgurk and possibly Rakkeed. Gurgurk's started a putsch against King
+Jaikark; I'm going to Konkrook at once. Call the military airport and
+have my command-car brought to Company House."
+
+Harry Quong and Hassan Bogdanoff had been at the banquet, too; on a
+world of lizard-faced silicate-eaters, the social difference between a
+human general and a human aircar-driver was almost infinitesimal. He'd
+have to talk to Barney Mordkovitz, too; when word of events at
+Konkrook got out among the local geeks, as it probably had already....
+
+The inner door of the soundproofed telecast-room burst open, three men
+hurried inside, and it slammed shut behind them. In the brief
+interval, there had been firing audible from outside. One of the men
+had a pistol in his right hand, and with his left arm he supported a
+companion, whose shoulder was mangled and dripped blood. The third man
+had a burp-gun in his hands. All were in civilian dress-shorts and
+light jackets. The man with the pistol holstered it and helped his
+injured companion into a chair. The burp-gunner advanced into the
+room, looked around, saw von Schlichten, and addressed him.
+
+"General! The geeks turned on us!" he cried. "The Tenth North Uller's
+mutinied; they're running wild all over the place. They've taken their
+barracks and supply-buildings, and the lorry-hangars and the
+maintenance-yard; they're headed this way in a mob. Some of the Zirk
+Cavalry's joined them."
+
+"How about the Kragans?"
+
+"The Eighteenth Rifles? They're with us. I saw a party of them firing
+into the mob; I saw some of the Tenth N.U.N.I. tossing a dead Kragan
+on their bayonets...."
+
+"Have any ammo left for that burp-gun? Come on, then; let's see what
+it'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 audible
+again. The civilian with the burp-gun knew better than to let a
+general go out first; elbowing von Schlichten out of the way, he
+crouched over his weapon and dashed outside. Drawing his pistol, von
+Schlichten followed, pulling the door shut after him.
+
+Darkness had fallen, while he had been inside; now the whole Company
+Reservation was ablaze with electric lights. Somebody at the
+power-plant--either the regular staff, if they were still holding, or
+the mutineers, if they had taken it--had thrown on the emergency
+lights. There was a confused mass of gray-skinned figures in front of
+Company House, reflected light twinkling on steel over them; from the
+direction of the native-troops barracks more natives were coming on
+the run. On the roof of a building across the street, two machine-guns
+were already firing into the mob. A group of Terrans came running out
+of a roadway between two buildings, from the direction of the
+repair-shops; several of them paused to fire behind them with pistols.
+They started toward Company House, saw what was going on there, and
+veered, darting into the door of the building from which the
+auto-weapons were firing. From up the street, a hundred-odd
+saurian-faced native soldiers were coming at the double, bayonets
+fixed 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 these
+rag-tag Auxiliaries. That mob down there's part of them." He was
+puffing under the double effort of running and talking. "Whole thing
+blew up in seconds; no chance to communicate with anybody...."
+
+A Terran woman, in black slacks and an orange sweater, ran across the
+street in front of them, pursued by a group of enlisted "men" of the
+Tenth North Uller Native Infantry, all shrieking "_Znidd suddabit!_"
+The fugitive ran into a doorway across the street; before her pursuers
+were aware of their danger, the Kragans had swept over them. There was
+no shooting; the slim, cruel-bladed bayonets did the work. From behind
+him, 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 of
+the storm-porch. There was shooting, which told him that some of the
+humans who had been at the banquet were still alive. He wondered,
+half-sick, how many, and whether they could hold out till he could
+clear the doorway, and, most of all, he found himself thinking of
+Paula Quinton. Skidding to a stop within fifty yards of the mob, he
+flung out his arms crucifix-wise to halt the Kragans. Behind, he could
+hear the Terrans and native-officers shouting commands to form front.
+
+"Give them one clip, reload, and then give them the bayonet!" he
+ordered. "Shove them off the steps and then clear the porch!"
+
+"One clip, fire, and reload, at will!" somebody passed it on in
+Kragan.
+
+The hundred rifles let go all at once, and for five seconds they
+poured a deafening two thousand rounds into the mutineers. There was
+some 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 hit
+him, 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 stood
+firm. Even under their native-officers and sergeants, they should not
+have broken as they did, but the best of these had paid for their
+loyalty to the Company with their lives, and the rest had destroyed
+their authority by revolting against the source from which it was
+derived. At that, the Skilkan peasantry who made up the Tenth Infantry
+and 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 killed
+them there, they wiped out those who had gotten into the semicircle of
+the storm-porch. The inside doors, von Schlichten saw, were open, but
+beyond them were Terrans and a dozen or so Kragans. Hideyoshi O'Leary
+and Barney Mordkovitz seemed to be in command of these.
+
+"We had about thirty seconds' warning," Mordkovitz reported, "and the
+Kragans in the hall bought us another sixty seconds. Of course, we all
+had our pistols...."
+
+"Hey! These storm-doors are wedged!" somebody discovered. "Those
+goddam geek servants ...!"
+
+"Yeah, kill any of them you catch," somebody else advised. "If we
+could have gotten these doors closed...."
+
+The mob, driven from the steps, was trying to reform and renew the
+attack. From up the street, the machine-guns, silent during the
+bayonet-fight, began hammering again. The mob surged forward to get
+out of their fire, and were met by a rifle-blast and a hedge of
+bayonets at the steps; they surged back, and the machine-guns flailed
+them again. They started to rush the building from whence the
+automatic-fire came, and there was a fusillade and a shriek of "_Znidd
+geek!_" from up the street. They turned and fled in the direction from
+whence they had come, bullets scourging them from three directions at
+once.
+
+For a moment, von Schlichten and the three Terrans and eighty-odd
+Kragans who had survived the fight stood on the steps, weapons poised,
+seeking more enemies. The machine-guns up the street stuttered a few
+short bursts and were silent. From behind, the beleaguered Terrans and
+their 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, went
+into the street, one covering with his rifle while the other three
+checked on their own casualties, used the short, leaf-shaped swords
+they carried to slash off the heads of enemy wounded, and collected
+weapons and ammunition. A couple of hundred more Kragans, led by
+Native-Major Kormork, the co-parent of young with King Kankad, came up
+at the double and stopped in front of Company House.
+
+"We were in quarters, aboard the _Aldebaran_ and in the guesthouse at
+the airport," Kormork reported. "We were attacked, fifteen minutes
+ago, by a mob. We took ten minutes beating them off, and five more
+getting here. I sent Native-Captain Zeerjeek and the rest of the force
+to retake the supply-depot and the shops and lorry hangars, which had
+been taken, and relieve the military airport, which is under attack."
+
+There was still firing from the commercial airport and the smaller
+military airfield. Once there was a string of heavy explosions that
+sounded like 80-mm rockets.
+
+"Good enough. I hope you didn't spread yourself out too thin. What's
+the situation at the commercial airport?"
+
+"The two ships, the _Aldebaran_ and the freighter _Northern Star_, are
+both safe," Kormork replied. "I saw them go on contragravity and rise
+to about a hundred feet."
+
+"Whose crowd is that you have?" he asked the Terran lieutenant who had
+taken 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 couple
+of runners from Captain Retief of Company 4 came in with word that he
+was being attacked by mutineers from the Tenth N.U.N.I. but that he
+was holding them back. So Captain Charbonneau, who was killed a few
+minutes ago, left a Terran lieutenant and a Kragan native-lieutenant
+and a couple of native-sergeants and thirty Kragans to hold the
+guardhouse, and brought the rest of us here."
+
+Von Schlichten nodded. "You'd pass the military airport and the
+power-plant, wouldn't you?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, sir. The military airport's holding out, and I saw the
+red-and-yellow danger-lights on the fence around the power-plant."
+
+That meant the power-plant was, for the time, safe; somebody'd turned
+twenty 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 had
+come out onto the porch from inside. "Where's Colonel Cheng-Li?"
+
+"Here, general." The Intelligence and Constabulary officer pushed
+through the crowd. "I was on the phone, talking to the military
+airport, the commercial airport, ordnance depot, spaceport, ship-docks
+and power-plant. All answer. I'm afraid Pop Goode, at the city
+power-plant, is done for; nobody answers there, but the TV-pickup is
+still on in the load-dispatcher's room, and the place is full of
+geeks. Colonel Jarman's coming here with a lorry to get combat-car
+crews; he's short-handed. Port-Captain Leavitt has all the native
+labor at the airport and spaceport herded into a repair dock; he's
+keeping them covered with the forward 90-mm gun of the _Northern
+Star_. Lorry-hangars, repair-shops and maintenance-yards don't
+answer."
+
+"That's what I was going to ask you. Good enough. Harry Quong, Hassan
+Bogdanoff!"
+
+His command-car crew front-and-centered.
+
+"I want you to take Colonel O'Leary up, as soon as my car's brought
+here.... Hid, you go up and see what's going on. Drop flares where
+there isn't any light. And take a look at the native-labor camp and
+the equipment-park, south of the reservation.... Kormork, you take all
+your gang, and half these soldiers from the Eighteenth, here, and help
+clear the native-troops barracks. And don't bother taking any
+prisoners; we can't spare personnel to guard them."
+
+Kormork grinned. The taking of prisoners had always been one of those
+irrational Terran customs which no Ulleran regarded with favor, or
+even comprehension.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+Authority of Governor-General von Schlichten
+
+
+There was fresh intelligence from Konkrook, by the time he returned to
+the telecast station. Mutiny had broken out there among the laborers
+and native troops, who outnumbered the Terrans and their Kragan
+mercenaries on Gongonk Island by five thousand to five hundred and
+fifteen hundred respectively. The attempt to relieve Jaikark's palace
+had been called off before the relief-force could be sent; there was
+heavy and confused fighting all over the island, and most of the
+combat contragravity and about half the Kragan Rifles had had to be
+committed to defend the Company farms across the Channel, on the
+mainland, south of the city. There had also been an urgent call for
+help from Colonel Rodolfo MacKinnon, in command of Company troops at
+the Keegark Residency, and another from the Residency at Kwurk, one of
+the Free Cities on the eastern shore of Takkad Sea.
+
+He called Keegark; a girl, apparently one of the civilian telecast
+technicians, answered.
+
+"We must have help, General von Schlichten," she told him. "The native
+troops, all but two hundred Kragans, have mutinied. They have
+everything here except Company House--docks, airport, everything.
+We're trying to hold out, but there are thousands of them. Our Takkad
+Native 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, we
+must have help...."
+
+A call came in, a few minutes later, from Krink, five hundred miles to
+the northeast across the mountains; the Resident-Agent there, one
+Francis Xavier Shapiro, reported rioting in the city and an attempted
+palace-revolution against King Jonkvank, and that the Residency was
+under attack. By way of variety, it was the army of King Jonkvank that
+had mutinied; the Sixth North Uller Native Infantry and the two
+companies of Zirk cavalry at Krink were still loyal, along with the
+Kragans.
+
+There was a pattern to all this. Von Schlichten stood staring at the
+big map, on the wall, showing the Takkad Sea area at the Equatorial
+Zone, and the country north of it to the pole, the area of Uller
+occupied by the Company. He was almost beginning to discern the
+underlying logic of the past half-hour's events when Keaveney, the
+Skilk Resident, blundered into him in a half-daze.
+
+"Sorry, general, didn't see you." His face was ashen, and his jowls
+sagged. Von Schlichten wondered if there could be another spectacle so
+woe-begone as a back-slapping extrovert with the bottom knocked out of
+him. "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's
+the end of all of us!"
+
+"It's not quite that bad, Mr. Keaveney." He looked at his watch. It
+was now nearly an hour since the native troops here at Skilk had
+mutinied. Insurrections like this usually succeeded or failed in the
+first hour. It was a little early to be certain, but he was beginning
+to 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 cheerfully
+than he felt, then turned to ask Brigadier-General Mordkovitz how the
+fighting was going at the native-troops barracks.
+
+"Not badly, general. Colonel Jarman's got some contragravity up and
+working. They blew out all four of the Tenth N.U.N.I.'s barracks; the
+Tenth and the Zirks are trying to defend the cavalry barracks. Some of
+our Kragans managed to slip around behind the cavalry stables. They're
+leading out hipposaurs, and sniping at the rear of the cavalry
+barracks."
+
+"That'll give us some cavalry of our own; a lot of these Kragans are
+good riders.... How about the repair-shops and maintenance-yard and
+lorry-hangars? I don't want these geeks getting hold of that equipment
+and using it against us."
+
+"Kormork's outfit are trying to take back the lorry-hangars. Jarman's
+got a couple of airjeeps and a combat-car helping them."
+
+"... won't be one of us left by this time tomorrow," Keaveney was
+wailing, to Paula Quinton and another woman. "And the Company is
+finished!"
+
+"We'd better get him a drink, or a cup of coffee, general," Mordkovitz
+suggested. "With a knockout-drop in it."
+
+Colonel Cheng-Li, the Intelligence officer, seemed to have somewhat
+the same idea. He approached Keaveney and tried to quiet him. At the
+same time, a woman in black slacks and an orange sweater--the one
+whose pursuers had been overrun by the Kragans at the beginning of
+the fighting--approached von Schlichten.
+
+"General, King Kankad's calling," she said. "He's on the screen in
+booth four."
+
+"Right." To avoid any possibility of misunderstanding, he slipped his
+geek-speaker into his mouth before entering the booth. Kankad's face
+was looking out of the screen at him, with Phil Yamazaki, the telecast
+operator at Kankad's Town, standing behind him.
+
+"Von!" The Kragan spoke almost as though in physical pain. "What can I
+do to help? I have twenty thousand of my people here who are capable
+of bearing arms, all with firearms, but I have transport for only five
+hundred. Where shall I send them?"
+
+Von Schlichten thought quickly. Keegark was finished; the Residency
+stood in the middle of the city, surrounded by two hundred thousand of
+King Orgzild's troops and subjects. Since Ullerans were bisexual, the
+total population, less the senile, crippled, and very young, was the
+military potential. Sending Kankad's five hundred warriors and his
+meager contragravity there would be the same as shoveling them into a
+furnace. The people at Keegark would have to be written off, like the
+twenty 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 find
+additional transport for you. I'll call him."
+
+"I'll send off what force I can, at once," Kankad promised. "How does
+it go with you at Skilk?"
+
+"We're holding, so far," he replied. "Paula is with me, here; she
+sends her friendship."
+
+Captain Inez Malavez, the woman officer in charge of the station, put
+her head into the booth.
+
+"General! Immediate-urgency message from Colonel O'Leary," she said.
+"Native laborers from the mine-labor camp are pouring into the
+mine-equipment park. Colonel O'Leary's used all his rockets and
+MG-ammunition trying to stop them."
+
+"Call you back, later," von Schlichten told Kankad. "I'll see what
+Them M'zangwe can do about transport; get what force you can started
+for Konkrook at once."
+
+He left the booth, removing his geek-speaker. "Barney!" he called.
+"General Mordkovitz! Who's the ranking officer in direct contact with
+the Eighteenth Rifles? Major Falkenberg?"
+
+"That's right."
+
+"Well, tell him to get as many of his Kragans as he can spare down to
+the equipment-park." He turned to Inez Malavez. "You call Jarman; tell
+him what O'Leary reported, and tell him to get cracking on it. Tell
+him not to let those geeks get any of that equipment onto
+contragravity; 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 or
+lorries, to get Falkenberg's Rifles to the equipment-park.... How's
+business at the lorry-hangars and maintenance-yard?"
+
+"Kormork's still working on that," the girl captain told him. "Nothing
+definite, yet."
+
+In one corner of the big room, somebody had thumbtacked a
+ten-foot-square map of the Company area to the floor. Paula Quinton
+and Mrs. Jules Keaveney were on their knees beside it, pushing out
+handfuls of little pink and white pills that somebody had brought in
+two bottles from the dispensary across the road, each using a
+billiard-bridge. The girl in the orange sweater had a handful of
+scribbled notes, and was telling them where to push the pills. There
+were 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." Von
+Schlichten suppressed a grin; that was the second time he'd heard her
+use that word, this evening. "The cigarettes are airjeeps, the
+cartridges are combat-cars, and the wafers are lorries or
+troop-carriers."
+
+"Not exactly regulation map-markers, but I've seen stranger things
+used.... Captain Malavez!"
+
+"Yes, sir?" The girl captain, rushing past, her hands full of
+teleprint-sheets, stopped in mid-stride.
+
+"What we need," he told her, "is a big TV-screen, and a pickup mounted
+on some sort of a contragravity vehicle at about two to five thousand
+feet directly overhead, to give us an image of the whole area. Can
+do?"
+
+"Can try, sir. We have an eight-foot circular screen that ought to do
+all 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 got
+Themistocles M'zangwe on the screen.
+
+"How is it, now?" he asked.
+
+"Getting a little better," the Graeco-African replied. "Half an hour
+ago, we were shooting geeks out the windows, here; now we have them
+contained between the spaceport and the native-troops and labor
+barracks, and down the east side of the island to the farms. We have
+the wire around the farms on the island electrified, and we're using
+almost all our combat contragravity to keep the farms on the mainland
+clear." He hesitated for a moment. "Did you hear about Eric and
+Lemoyne?"
+
+Von Schlichten shook his head.
+
+"We just got a call from Rodolfo MacKinnon. He took a couple of
+prisoners and made them talk. The whole party that were at Orgzild's
+palace were massacred. Some of them were lucky enough to get killed
+fighting. The geeks took Eric and Hendrik alive; rolled them in a
+puddle of thermoconcentrate fuel and set fire to them. When we can
+spare the contragravity, we're going to drop something on the Kee-geek
+embassy, over in town."
+
+"Well, that was what I wanted to call you about--contragravity." He
+told M'zangwe about King Kankad's offer. "His crowd ought to be coming
+in in a couple of hours. What can you scrape up to send to Kankad's
+Town to airlift Kragans in?"
+
+"Well, we have three hundred-and-fifty-foot gun-cutters, one 90-mm gun
+apiece. The _Elmoran_, the _Gaucho_, and the _Bushranger_. But they're
+not much as transports, and we need them here pretty badly. Then, we
+have five fertilizer and charcoal scows, and a lot of heavy transport
+lorries, and two one-eighty-foot pickup boats."
+
+"How about the _Piet Joubert_?" von Schlichten asked. "She was due in
+Konkrook from the east about 1300 today, wasn't she?"
+
+M'zangwe swore. "She got in, all right. But the geeks boarded her at
+the dock, within twenty minutes after things started. They tried to
+lift out with her, and the Channel Battery shot her down into Konkrook
+Channel, off the Fifty Sixth Street docks."
+
+"Well, you couldn't let the geeks have her, to use against us. What do
+you hear from the other ships?"
+
+"_Procyon_'s at Grank; we haven't had any reports of any kind from
+there, 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 De
+Wett_ were both at Keegark; we can assume Orgzild has both of them."
+
+"All right. I'm sending _Aldebaran_ to Kankad's, to pick up more
+reenforcements for you."
+
+"We can use them! And with _Aldebaran_, we ought to be able to take
+the 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 of
+communications-machines and hubbub of voices, Jules Keaveney arguing
+contentiously. Evidently Colonel Cheng-Li's efforts to drag the
+Resident out of his despondency had been an excessive success.
+
+"But it's crazy! Not just here; everywhere on Uller!" Keaveney was
+saying. "How did they do it? They have no telecast equipment."
+
+"You have me stopped, Jules," Mordkovitz was replying. "I know a lot
+of rich geeks have receiving sets, but no sending sets."
+
+The pattern that had been tantalizing von Schlichten took visible
+shape in his mind. For a moment, he shelved the matter of the
+_Aldebaran_.
+
+"They didn't need sending equipment, Barney," he said. "They used
+ours."
+
+"What do you mean?" Keaveney challenged.
+
+"Look what happened. Sid Harrington was poisoned in Konkrook. The
+news, 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 the
+signal they'd agreed upon, probably months in advance. All they had to
+do was have that geek servant put poison in Harrington's whiskey, and
+we did the rest."
+
+"Well, what was our intelligence doing--sleeping?" Keaveney demanded
+angrily.
+
+"No, they were writing reports for your civil administration blokes to
+stuff in the wastebasket, and being called mailed-fist-and-rattling-saber
+alarmists for their pains." He turned away from Keaveney. "Barney, where's
+Dirk Prinsloo?"
+
+"Aboard his ship. He hitched a ride to the airport with Jarman, when
+he 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 to
+pick 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 think
+we 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 the
+ubiquitous girl in the orange sweater were struggling to get a big
+circular TV-screen up, then turned to look at the situation-map. A
+girl tech-sergeant was keeping Paula Quinton and Mrs. Jules Keaveney
+informed.
+
+"Start pushing geeks out of the Fifth Zirk Cavalry barracks," the
+sergeant was saying. "The one at the north end, and the one next to
+it; they're both on fire, now." She tossed a slip into the wastebasket
+beside her and glanced at the next slip. "And more pink pills back of
+the barracks and stables, and move them a little to the northwest;
+Kragans as skirmishers, to intercept geeks trying to slip away from
+the 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. "Let
+them 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 northern
+barracks. "There's usually two-way traffic on bridges. Kill them here
+and we won't have to worry about keeping them out."
+
+Of course, it was easy to be bloodthirsty about pink pills and white
+pills. Once, on a three-months' reaction-drive voyage from Yggdrasill
+to Loki, he had taught a couple of professors of extraterrestrial
+zoology to play _kriegspiel_, and before the end of the trip, he was
+being 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 of
+antiseptic plaster over the back of his head came up and gave him a
+radioprint slip. Guido Karamessinis, the Resident-Agent at Grank, had
+reported, at last. The city, he said, was quiet, but King Yoorkerk's
+troops had seized the Company airport and docks, taken the _Procyon_
+and the _Northern Lights_ and put guards aboard them, and were
+surrounding 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," he
+told the Grank Resident. "If the rebellion's put down, he'll come
+forward as your friend and protector; if we're wiped out elsewhere,
+he'll yell '_Znidd suddabit!_' and swamp you. Don't antagonize him; we
+can'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 of
+freckles 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 keeping
+open a couple of streets between there and here. We air-lifted all our
+Kragans and half the Sixth N.U.N.I. to the Palace, and we have the
+Zirks patrolling the streets on 'saurback. Now, we have our lorries
+and troop-carriers out picking up elements of Jonkvank's loyal troops
+outside town."
+
+"Who's doing the rioting, then?"
+
+She named three of Jonkvank's regiments. "And the city hoodlums, and
+priests from the temples of one sect that followed Rakkeed, and
+Skilkan fifth columnists. Mr. Shapiro can give you the details. Shall
+I call him?"
+
+"Never mind. He's probably busy, he's not as easy on the eyes as you
+are, 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 troops
+into 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-colored
+light, then cleared. Within a few minutes, a saurian Ulleran face was
+looking out of it at him--a harsh-lined, elderly face, with an old
+scar, quartz-crusted, along one side.
+
+"Your Majesty," von Schlichten greeted him.
+
+Jonkvank pronounced something intended to correspond to von
+Schlichten'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 am
+told that your soldiers in Krink have risen against you, and that your
+loyal troops are far from the city."
+
+"Yes. That was the work of my War Minister, Hurkkurk, who was in the
+pay of King Firkked of Skilk, may Jeels devour him alive! I have
+Hurkkurk's head here somewhere, if you want to see it, but that will
+not bring my loyal soldiers to Krink any sooner."
+
+"Dead traitors' heads do not interest me, King Jonkvank," von
+Schlichten replied, in what he estimated that the Krinkan king would
+interpret as a tone of cold-blooded cruelty. "There are too many
+traitors' heads still on traitors' shoulders.... What regiments are
+loyal to you, and where are they now?"
+
+Jonkvank began naming regiments and locating them, all at minor
+provincial towns at least a hundred miles from Krink.
+
+"Hurkkurk did his work well; I'm afraid you killed him too
+mercifully," von Schlichten said. "Well, I'm sending the _Northern
+Star_ to Krink. She can only bring in one regiment at a trip, the way
+they're scattered; which one do you want first?"
+
+Jonkvank's mouth, until now compressed grimly, parted in a gleaming
+smile. He made an exclamation of pleasure which sounded rather like a
+boy running along a picket fence with a stick.
+
+"Good, general! Good!" he cried. "The first should be the regiment
+Murderers, at Furnk; they all have rifles like your soldiers. Have
+them brought to the Great Square, at the Palace here. And then, the
+regiment 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 the
+work 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 this
+wickedness, both here and there!"
+
+"Good. Now, if you will pardon me, I'll go to give the necessary
+orders...."
+
+As he left the booth, he saw Hideyoshi O'Leary in front of the
+situation-map, and hailed him.
+
+"Harry and Hassan are getting the car re-ammoed; they dropped me off
+here. 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 here
+again." He told O'Leary what he intended doing. "You'll probably have
+to go around ahead of the _Star_ and alert these regiments. And as
+soon as things stabilize at Krink, prod Jonkvank into airlifting
+troops here. You're authorized, in my name, to promise Jonkvank that
+he can assume political control at Skilk, after we've stuffed
+Firkked's head in the dustbin."
+
+Jules Keaveney, who always seemed to be where he wasn't wanted, heard
+that and fairly screamed.
+
+"General von Schlichten! That is a political decision! You have no
+authority to make promises like that; that is a matter for the
+Governor-General, at least!"
+
+"Well, as of now, and until a successor to Sid Harrington can be sent
+here from Terra, I'm Governor-General," von Schlichten told him,
+mentally thanking Keaveney for reminding him of the necessity for such
+a step. "Captain Malavez! You will send out an all-station telecast,
+immediately: Military Commander-in-Chief Carlos von Schlichten, being
+informed of the deaths of both Governor-General Harrington and
+Lieutenant-Governor Blount, assumes the duties of Governor-General, as
+of 0001 today." He turned to Keaveney. "Does that satisfy you?" he
+asked.
+
+"No, it doesn't. You have no authority to assume a civil position of
+any 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't
+fancy the Uller Company is going to be impressed by it."
+
+"The Uller Company," von Schlichten replied, "is six and a half
+parsecs 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 little
+over twenty-one years, each way." He holstered the pistol again. "You
+were bitching about how we needed reenforcements, a while ago. Well,
+here's where we have to reverse Clausewitz and use politics as an
+extension by other means of war."
+
+"That brings up another question, general," one of Keaveney's
+subordinates said. "Can we hold out long enough for help to get here
+from 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 live
+Terran left on Uller." He felt a brief sadistic pleasure as he watched
+Keaveney's face sag in horror. "What do you think we'll live on, for a
+year?" he asked. "On this planet, there's not more than a three
+months' supply of any sort of food a human can eat. And the ships
+that'll be coming in until word of our plight can get to Terra won't
+bring enough to keep us going. We need the farms and livestock and the
+animal-tissue culture plant at Konkrook, and the farms at Krink and on
+the plateau back of Skilk, and we need peace and native labor to work
+them."
+
+Nobody seemed to have anything to say after that, for a while. Then
+Keaveney suggested that the next ship was due in from Niflheim in
+three months, and that it could be used to evacuate all the Terrans on
+Uller.
+
+"And I'll personally shoot any able-bodied Terran who tries to board
+that ship," von Schlichten promised. "Get this through your heads, all
+of you. We are going to break this rebellion, and we are going to hold
+Uller for the Company and the Terran Federation." He looked around
+him. "Now, get back to work, all of you," he told the group that had
+formed around him and Keaveney. "Miss Quinton, you just heard me order
+my adjutant, Colonel O'Leary, on detached duty to Krink. I want you to
+take over for him. You'll have rank and authority as colonel for the
+duration of this war."
+
+She was thunderstruck. "But I know absolutely nothing about military
+matters. There must be a hundred people here who are better qualified
+than I am...."
+
+"There are, and they all have jobs, and I'd have to find replacements
+for them, and replacements for the replacements. You won't leave any
+vacancy to be filled. And you'll learn, fast enough." He went over to
+the situation-map again, and looked at the arrangement of pink and
+white pills. "First of all, I want you to call Jarman, at the military
+airport, and have an airjeep and driver sent around here for me. I'm
+going up and have a look around. Barney, keep the show going while I'm
+out, 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 air
+and tobacco-smoke of the telecast station out of his lungs, as the
+light airjeep let down into the street. Oh-one-fifteen--two hours and
+a half since the mutiny at the native-troops barracks had broken out.
+The Company reservation was still ablaze with lights, and over the
+roof of the hospital and dispensary and test-lab he could see the
+glare 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 predominantly
+Malayan and Polynesian blood, slid back the duraglass canopy for him
+to climb in, then snapped it into place when he had strapped himself
+into his seat.
+
+"Can you handle the armament, sir?" he asked.
+
+Von Schlichten nodded approvingly. Not a very flattering question, but
+the boy was right to make sure, before they started out.
+
+"I've done it, once or twice," he understated. "Let's go; I want a
+look 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 the
+direction of the flames and explosions and magnesium-lights to the
+south and tapping his booster-button gently. The vehicle shot forward
+and came floating in over the scene of the fighting. The situation-map
+at the improvised headquarters had shown a mixture of pink and white
+pills in the mine-equipment park; something was going to have to be
+done about the lag in correcting it, for the area was entirely in the
+hands of loyal Company troops, and the mob of laborers and mutinous
+soldiers had been pushed back into the temporary camp where the
+workers had been gathered to await transportation to the Arctic. As he
+feared, the rioting workers, many of whom were trained to handle
+contragravity equipment, had managed to lift up a number of
+dump-trucks and powershovels and bulldozers, intending to use them as
+improvised airtanks, but Jarman's combat-cars had gotten on the job
+promptly and all of these had been shot down and were lying in
+wreckage, mostly among the rows of parked mining-equipment.
+
+From the labor-camp, a surprising volume of fire was being directed
+against the attack which had already started from the retaken
+equipment-park. This was just another evidence of the failure of
+Intelligence and the Constabulary--and consequently of himself--to
+anticipate the brewing storm. There was, of course, practically no
+chance of keeping Ullerans from having native weapons, swords, knives,
+even bows and air-rifles, and a certain number of Volund-made
+trade-quality automatic pistols could be expected, but most of the
+fire was coming from military rifles, and now and then he could see
+the furnace-like backflash of a recoilless rifle or a bazooka, or the
+steady flicker of a machine-gun. Even if a few of these weapons had
+been brought from the barracks by retreating Tenth Infantry or Fifth
+Cavalry mutineers, there were still too many.
+
+Hovering above the fighting, aloof from it, he saw six long
+troop-carriers land and disgorge Kragan Rifles who had been released
+by the liquidation of resistance at the native-troops barracks. A
+little later, two airtanks floated in, and then two more, going off
+contragravity and lumbering on treads to fire their 90-mm rifles. At
+the same time, combat-cars swooped in, banging away with their lighter
+auto-cannon and launching rockets. The titanium prefab-huts, set up to
+house the laborers and intended to be taken north with them for their
+stay on the polar desert, were simply wiped away. Among the wreckage,
+resistance was being blown out like the lights of a candelabrum. Push
+the white pills out, girls, he thought. Don't push them anywhere; put
+them back in the bottle. This year, there wouldn't be any mining done
+at the North Pole; next year, the stockholders'll be bitching about
+their dividend-checks. And a lot of new machine operators are going to
+have 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 at
+the equipment-park?"
+
+A voice at the telecast station furnished it; he punched it out.
+
+"Von Schlichten, right overhead. That you, Major Falkenberg? Nice
+going, major, how are your casualties?"
+
+"Not too bad. Twenty or thirty Kragans and loyal Skilkans, and eight
+Terrans killed, about as many wounded."
+
+"Pretty good, considering what you're running into. Get many of your
+Kragans mounted on those hipposaurs?"
+
+"About a hundred, a lot of 'saurs got shot, while we were leading
+them out from the stables."
+
+"Well, I can see geeks streaming away from the labor-camp, out the
+south end, going in the direction of the river. Use what cavalry you
+have on them, and what contragravity you can spare. I'll drop a few
+flares to show their position and direction."
+
+Anticipating him, the driver turned the airjeep and started toward the
+dry Hoork River. Von Schlichten nodded approval and told him to
+release 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. Some
+of it we can put into the air; the rest we can use to build
+barricades. None of it do we want the geeks getting hold of, and the
+equipment-park's outside our practical perimeter. I'll send people to
+help you move it."
+
+"No need to do that, sir; I have about a hundred and fifty loyal North
+Ullerans--foremen, technicians, overseers--who can handle it."
+
+"All right. Use your own judgment. Put the stuff back of the
+native-troops barracks, and between the power-plant and the Company
+office-buildings, and anywhere else you can." The lieutenant nudged
+him and pushed a couple of buttons on the dashboard.
+
+"Here go the flares, now."
+
+Immediately, a couple of airjeeps pounced in, to strafe the fleeing
+enemy. Somebody must have already been issuing orders on another
+wavelength; a number of Kragans, riding hipposaurs, were galloping
+into the light of the flares.
+
+"Now, let's have a look at the native barracks and the
+maintenance-yards," he said. "And then, we'll make a circuit around
+the Reservation, about two or three miles out. I'm not happy about
+where 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 know
+it 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 to
+wipe us out, themselves," von Schlichten said. "For the timidity and
+stupidity of our enemies, Allah make us truly thankful, amen. It's
+something no commander should depend on, but be glad when it happens.
+If Firkked had had a couple of regiments on hand outside the
+reservation to jump us as soon as the Tenth and the Zirks mutinied, he
+could have swamped us in twenty minutes and we'll all have had our
+throats cut by now."
+
+There was nothing going on in the area between the native barracks and
+the mountains except some sporadic firing as small patrols of Kragans
+clashed with clumps of fleeing mutineers. All the barracks, even those
+of the Rifles, were burning; the red-and-yellow danger-lights around
+the power-plant and the water-works and the explosives magazines were
+still on. Most of the floodlights were still on, and there was still
+some fighting around the maintenance-yard. It looked as though the
+survivors of the Tenth N.U.N.I. were in a few small pockets which were
+being squeezed out.
+
+There was nothing at all going on north of the Reservation; the
+countryside, by day a checkerboard of walled fields and small
+villages, was dark, except for a dim light, here and there, where the
+occupants of some farmhouse had been awakened by the noise of battle.
+The airjeep dropped lower, and the driver slid open the window beside
+him; von Schlichten could hear the grunts and snorts and squawks of
+farm-animals, similarly aroused.
+
+Then, two miles east of the Reservation, he caught a new sound--the
+flowing, riverlike, murmur of something vast on the move.
+
+"Hear that, lieutenant?" he asked. "Head for it, at about a thousand
+feet. 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 city
+mob."
+
+"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 to
+this side of the river, they'd be winded. They'd stop for a blow, and
+then 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 and
+punched the wavelength of the military airport.
+
+"Von Schlichten, my compliments to Colonel Jarman. Tell him there's a
+geek mob, or possibly Firkked's regulars, on the main highway from
+Skilk, two miles east of the Reservation. Get some combat
+contragravity over here, at once. We'll light them up for you. And
+tell Colonel Jarman to start flying patrols up and down along the
+Hoork River; this may not be the only gang that's coming out to see
+us."
+
+The sounds were directly below, now--the scuffing of horny-soled feet
+on the dirt road, the clink and rattle of slung weapons, the clicking
+and 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 was
+coming in again, down the road toward the advancing column. Von
+Schlichten peered into his all-armament sight, his foot on the
+machine-gun pedal and his fingers on the rocket buttons. The highway
+below was jammed with geeks, and they were all stopped dead and
+staring upward, as though hypnotized by the lights. A second later,
+they had recovered and were shooting--not at the airjeep, but at the
+four globes of blazing magnesium. Then he had the close-packed mass of
+non-humanity in his sights; he tramped the pedal and began punching
+buttons. He still had four rockets left by the time the mob was behind
+him.
+
+"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 in
+front of the mob, who now had their backs turned and were staring in
+the direction in which they had last seen the vehicle. Again, von
+Schlichten plowed them with rockets and harrowed them with his guns.
+Some of the Skilkans were trying to get over the high fences on either
+side of the road--really stockades of petrified tree-trunks. Others
+were firing, and this time they were shooting at the airjeep. It took
+one hit from a heavy shellosaur-rifle, and, immediately, the driver
+banked and turned away from the road.
+
+"Dammit, why did you do that?" von Schlichten demanded, lifting his
+foot from the gun-pedal. "Are you afraid of the kind of popguns those
+geeks are using?"
+
+"I am not afraid to risk my vehicle, or myself, sir," the lieutenant
+replied, with the extreme formality of a very junior officer chewing
+out a very senior one. "I am, however, afraid to risk my passenger.
+Generals are not expendable, sir; neither are they issued for use as
+clay pigeons."
+
+He was right, of course. Von Schlichten admitted it. "I'm too old to
+play cowboy, like this," he said. "Back to the Reservation, telecast
+station."
+
+Looking back over his shoulder, he saw eight or ten more flares
+alight, and the ground-flashes of exploding shells and rockets; the
+air above the road was sparkling with gun-flames. Jarman must have had
+some contragravity ready to be sent off on the instant.
+
+While he had been out, somebody had gotten a TV-pickup mounted on a
+contragravity-lifter and run up to two thousand feet, on the end of a
+steel-tough tensilon mooring-line. The big circular screen was lit,
+showing the whole Company Reservation, with the surrounding
+countryside foreshortened by perspective to the distant lights of
+Skilk. The map had been taken up from the floor, and a big
+terrain-board had been brought in from the Chief Engineer's office and
+set up in its place. In front of the screen, Paula Quinton, Barney
+Mordkovitz, Colonel Cheng-Li, and, conspicuously silent, Jules
+Keaveney sat drinking coffee and munching sandwiches. Half a dozen
+Terrans, of both sexes, were working furiously to get the markers
+which replaced the pink and white pills placed on the board, and one
+of Captain Inez Malavez's non-coms, with a headset, was getting
+combat reports directly from the switchboard. Everything was clicking
+like well-oiled machinery.
+
+On the TV-screen, the Residency area was ablaze with light, and so
+were the ship-docks, the airport and spaceport, the shops, and the
+maintenance-yard. On the terrain-board, the latter was now marked as
+completely in Company hands. The ruins of the native-troops barracks
+were still burning, and there was a twinkle of orange-red here and
+there among the ruins of the labor-camp. Much of the equipment for the
+polar mines had already been shifted into defensible ground. The rest
+of the circle was dark, except for the distant lights of Skilk, where
+the nuclear power plant was apparently still functioning in native
+hands.
+
+Then, without warning, a spot of white light blazed into being
+southeast of the Company area and southwest of Skilk, followed by
+another and another. Instantly, von Schlichten glanced up at the row
+of smaller screens, and on one of them saw the view as picked up by a
+patrolling airjeep.
+
+The army of King Firkked of Skilk had finally put in its appearance,
+coming in two columns, one southward from Skilk and the other
+northward along the west bank of the dry river. The former had crossed
+over and joined the latter, about three miles south of the
+Reservation. The scene in the screen was similar to the one he had,
+himself, witnessed through his armament-sight. The Skilkan regulars
+had been marching in formation, some on the road and some along
+parallel lanes and paths. They had the look of trained and disciplined
+troops, but they had made the same mistake as the rabble that had been
+shot up on the north side of the Reservation. Unused to attack from
+the air, they had all halted in place and were gaping open-mouthed,
+their opal teeth gleaming in the white flare-light. However, before
+the 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 thrown
+most of his available contragravity at them, including the
+combat-cars, that had already started to form the second wave of the
+attack on the mob to the north. Other flares bloomed in the darkness,
+and the fiery trails of rockets curved downward to end in yellow
+flashes on the ground.
+
+The airjeep with the pickup circled back; the troops on the road and
+in the adjoining fields had broken. The former were caught between the
+fences which made Ulleran roads such death-traps when under
+air-attack. The latter had dispersed, and were running away,
+individually and by squads; at first, it looked like a panic, but he
+could see officers signaling to the larger groups of fugitives to open
+out, apparently directing the flight. By this time, there were ten or
+twelve combat-cars and about twenty airjeeps at work. In the moving
+view from the pickup-jeep, he saw what looked like a 90-mm rocket land
+in the middle of a company that was still trying to defend itself with
+small-arms fire on the road, wiping out about half of them.
+
+"Make the most of it, boys," Barney Mordkovitz, his mouth full of
+sandwich, was saying. "Heave it to them; you won't get another chance
+like that at those buggers."
+
+"Why not?" Colonel Paula Quinton wanted to know. Her military
+education 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, if
+you noticed. And they'll keep out from between the fences."
+
+In the large screen, a quick succession of gun-flashes leaped up from
+the direction of the Hoork River and shells began bursting over the scene
+of the attack. The screen tuned to the pickup on the airjeep went
+dead; in the big screen, there was a twinkling of falling fire. Almost
+at 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 the
+big switchboard. "Lieutenant Kalanang's jeep was hit; Lieutenant
+Vermaas is cutting in his pickup on the same wavelength."
+
+The small screen lighted again. In the big screen, a cluster of
+magnesium-lights appeared above where the Skilkan gun had been; in the
+small 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, around
+the point of attack. Von Schlichten nodded approvingly.
+
+"I was wondering how long it'd take somebody to think of that," he
+said. "Granaries and forage-stacks on some of these farms. They'll
+burn for half an hour, at least." He looked at his watch. "And by that
+time, it'll be daylight."
+
+"As far as we know, that was the only 75-mm gun Firkked had," Colonel
+Cheng-Li said. "He has at least six, possibly ten, 40-mm's. It's a
+wonder we haven't seen anything of them."
+
+"Well, there's no way of being sure," Jules Keaveney said, "but I
+have an idea they're all at or around the Palace. Firkked knows about
+how much contragravity we have. He's probably wondering why we aren't
+bombing 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 contragravity
+could Firkked scrape together, for an attack on us? I've been
+expecting a geek _Luftwaffe_ over here, at any moment."
+
+Colonel Cheng-Li studied the smoking tip of his cigarette for a
+moment. "Well, Firkked owns, personally, three ten-passenger aircars,
+a thing like a troop-carrier that he transports some of his courtiers
+around in, four airjeeps armed with a pair of 15-mm machine-guns
+apiece, and two big lorries. There are possibly two hundred vehicles
+of all types in Skilk and the country around, but some of them are in
+the hands of natives friendly to us and or hostile to Firkked. I can
+get the exact figures from the Constabulary office at Company House."
+
+"That's close enough," von Schlichten told him. "And there'll be
+oodles of thermoconcentrate-fuel, and blasting explosives. Colonel
+Quinton, suppose you call Ed Wallingsby, the Chief Engineer, right
+away; have him commissioned colonel. Tell him to get to work making
+this place secure against air attack; tell him to consult with Colonel
+Jarman. Tell him to get those geeks Leavitt has penned in the
+repair-dock at the airport and use them to dig slit-trenches and fill
+sandbags and so on. He can use Kragan limited-duty wounded to guard
+them.... Mr. Keaveney, you'll begin setting up something in the way of
+an ARP-organization. You'll have to get along on what nobody else
+wants. You will also consult with Colonel Jarman, and with Colonel
+Wallingsby. Better get started on it now. Just think of everything
+around here that could go wrong in case of an air attack, and try to
+do something about it in advance."
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+The Geek Luftwaffe and the Kragan Airlift
+
+
+At 0245, an attack developed on the northwestern corner of the
+Reservation, in the direction of the explosives magazines. It turned
+out to be relatively trivial. Remnants of the mob that had been broken
+up by air attack on the road had gotten together and were making
+rushes in small bands, keeping well spread out. Beating them off took
+considerable ammunition, but it was accomplished with negligible
+casualties to the defenders. They finally stopped coming around
+daylight.
+
+In the meantime, Themistocles M'zangwe called from Konkrook, appearing
+in the screen with his left arm in a freshly white sling.
+
+"What the hell have you been doing to yourself?" von Schlichten wanted
+to know.
+
+"Crossbow-bolt, about half an hour ago. A couple of inches lower and
+acting 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 making
+out? Have Kankad's people started coming in, yet?"
+
+"Oh, yes, about six hundred of them have gotten in already, in the
+damnedest collection of vehicles you ever saw. Kankad must be using
+every scrap of contragravity he has; it's a regular airborne
+Dunkirk-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 here
+have scraped together an air-force of their own--farm-lorries,
+aircars, that sort of thing--and they're using them to bomb us here
+and at the mainland farm, mostly with nitroglycerine. We've shot down
+about twenty of them, but they're still coming. They tried a
+boat-attack across the Channel; that's how I got this. We've been
+doing some bombing, ourselves; we made a down payment for Eric Blount
+and Hendrik Lemoyne. Took a fifty-ton tank off a fuel-lorry, fitted it
+with a detonator, filled it with thermoconcentrate, and ferried it
+over on the _Elmoran_ and dumped it on the Keegarkan Embassy. It must
+have landed in the middle of the central court; in about fifteen
+seconds, flames were coming out every window in the place." His face
+became less jovial. "We had something pretty bad happen here, too," he
+said. "That Konkrook Fencibles rabble of Prince Jaizerd's mutinied,
+along with the others; they got into the hospital and butchered
+everybody in the place, patients and staff. The Kragans got there too
+late to save anybody, but they wiped out the Fencibles. Jaizerd
+himself was the only one they took alive, and he didn't stay that way
+very long."
+
+"How are you making out with your Civil Administration crowd?"
+
+M'zangwe grimaced. "I haven't had to put any of them under actual
+arrest, so far, but we've had to keep Buhrmann away from the
+communications equipment by force. He wanted to call you up and chew
+you 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 Uller
+massacred by detail, when you could save Konkrook by bringing them
+all here."
+
+"You tell him I'm going to hold this planet, not just one city. Tell
+him I have a sense of my duty to the Company and its stockholders, if
+he 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 state
+about 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 of
+the perimeter stopped entirely. Wallingsby had the three-hundred-odd
+Skilkan laborers at work; he had gathered up all the tarpaulin he could
+find, and had the two sewing-machines in the tentmaker's shop running on
+sandbags. Jules Keaveney, to von Schlichten's agreeable surprise, had
+taken hold of his ARP assignment, and was doing an efficient job in
+organizing for fire-fighting, damage-control and first aid. Colonel
+Jarman had his airjeeps and combat-cars working in ever-widening circles
+over the countryside, shooting up everything in sight that even looked
+like contragravity equipment. Some of these patrols had to be recalled,
+around 1030, when sporadic nuisance-sniping began from the side of the
+mountain to the west. And, along with everything else, Paula Quinton
+managed, along with her other work, to get a complete digest prepared of
+the situation elsewhere in the Terran-occupied parts of the planet.
+
+The situation at Konkrook was brightening steadily. The second wave of
+Kankad's improvised airlift, reenforced by contragravity from
+Konkrook, had come in; there were now close to two thousand fresh
+Kragans on Gongonk Island and the mainland farms, Kankad himself with
+them. The _Aldebaran_ had reached Kankad's Town, and was loading
+another thousand Kragans.... There was nothing more from Keegark. A
+message from Colonel MacKinnon had come in at dawn, to the effect that
+the geeks had penetrated his last defenses and that he was about to
+blow up the Residency; thereafter Keegark went off the air.... By
+0730, the _Northern Star_ had landed the regiment Murderers, armed
+with first-quality Terran infantry-rifles and a few machine-guns and
+bazookas, at the Palace at Krink, and by 0845 she had returned with
+another regiment, the Jeel-Feeders. The three-lane street connecting
+the Palace and the Residency had been widened to six, and then to
+eight.... Guido Karamessinis, at Grank, was still at uneasy peace with
+King Yoorkerk, who was still undecided whether the rebels or the
+Company were going to be the eventual victors, and afraid to take any
+irrevocable step in either direction.... Eight men and four women, the
+survivors of a trading-station on the eastern shore of Takkad Sea,
+reached Konkrook in a lorry; another trading station, on the south
+shore, reported by telecast that the natives there had refused to rise
+against them, and had crucified five of Rakkeed's disciples who had
+come among them preaching _znidd suddabit_.
+
+At 1100, Paula Quinton and Barney Mordkovitz virtually ordered him to
+get some sleep. He went to his quarters at Company House, downed a
+spaceship-captain's-size drink of honey-rum, and slept until 1600. As
+he dressed and shaved, he could hear, through the open window, the
+slow sputter of small-arms' fire, punctuated by the occasional
+_whump-whump-whump_ of 40-mm auto-cannon or the hammering of a
+machine-gun.
+
+Returning to his command-post at the telecast station, the
+terrain-board showed that the perimeter of defense had been pushed out
+in a bulge at the northwest corner; the TV-screen pictured a crude
+breast-work of petrified tree-trunks, sandbags, mining machinery,
+packing-cases and odds-and-ends, upon which Wallingsby's native
+laborers were working under guard while a skirmish-line of Kragans had
+been thrown out another four or five hundred yards and were exchanging
+pot-shots with Skilkans on the gullied hillside.
+
+"Where's Colonel Quinton?" he asked. "She ought to be taking a turn in
+the sack, now."
+
+"She's taking one," Major Falkenberg, who had commanded the action at
+the native-troops barracks and the labor-camp, the night before, told
+him. "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 the
+perimeter on the screen. "Whose idea was that?" he asked. "It's a good
+one; I ought to have thought of it, myself."
+
+"Your new adjutant," Falkenberg grinned. "She asked somebody what
+those big domes, up there, were. When they told her there were ten
+thousand tons of thermoconcentrate, five thousand tons of
+blasting-explosives, and five tons of plutonium, under them, she
+damned near fainted, and then she ordered that, right away."
+
+More reports came in. The entire garrison of the small Residency at
+Kwurk, the most northern of the eastern shore Free Cities, had arrived
+at Kankad's Town in two hundred-foot contragravity scows and five
+aircars. Two of the aircars arrived half an hour behind the rest of
+the refugee flotilla, having turned off at Keegark to pay their
+respects to King Orgzild. They reported the Keegark Residency in
+ruins, its central buildings vanished in a huge crater; the _Jan
+Smuts_ and the _Christiaan De Wett_ were still in the Company docks,
+both apparently damaged by the blast which had destroyed the
+Residency. One of the aircars had rocketed and machine-gunned some
+Keegarkans who appeared to be trying to repair them; the other blew up
+King Orgzild's nitroglycerine plant. Von Schlichten called Konkrook
+and ordered a bombing-mission against Keegark organized, to make sure
+the two ships stayed out of service.
+
+The _Northern Star_ was still bringing loyal troops into Krink. King
+Jonkvank, whom von Schlichten called, was highly elated.
+
+"We are killing traitors wherever we find them!" he exulted. "The city
+is yellow with their blood; their heads are piled everywhere! How is
+it with you at Skilk?"
+
+"We have killed many, also," von Schlichten boasted. "And tonight, we
+will kill more; we are preparing bombs of great destruction, which we
+will rain down upon Skilk until there is not one stone left upon
+another, or one infant of a day's age left alive!"
+
+Jonkvank reacted as he was intended to. "Oh, no, general, don't do all
+that!" he exclaimed. "You promised me that I should have Skilk, on the
+word of a Terran. Are you going to give me a city of ruins and
+corpses? Ruins are no good to anybody, and I am not a Jeel, to eat
+corpses."
+
+Von Schlichten shrugged. "When you are strong, you can flog your
+enemies 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 to
+promise. "All my best regiments: the Murderers, the Jeel-Feeders, the
+Corpse-Reapers, the Devastators, the Fear-Makers. But, now that we
+have stopped this sinful rebellion, here, I can't take chances that it
+will break out again as soon as I strip the city of troops."
+
+Von Schlichten nodded. Jonkvank's argument made sense; he would have
+taken a similar position, himself.
+
+"Well, get as many as you can over here, as soon as possible," he
+said. "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 of
+the big screen, eating his dinner. There had been light ground-action
+along the southern end of the perimeter--King Firkked's regulars,
+reenforced by Zirk tribesmen and levies of townspeople, all of whom
+seemed to have firearms, were filtering in through the ruins of the
+labor-camp and the wreckage of the equipment-park--and there was
+renewed sniping from the mountainside. The long afternoon of the
+northern autumn dragged on; finally, at 2200, the sun set, and it was
+not fully dark for another hour. For some time, there was an ominous
+quiet, and then, at 0030, the enemy began attacking in force, driving
+herds of livestock--lumbering six-legged brutes bred by the North
+Ullerans for food--to test the defenses for electrified wire and
+land-mines. Most of these were shot down or blown up, but a few got as
+far as the wire, which, by now, had been strung and electrified
+completely around the perimeter.
+
+Behind them came parties of Skilkan regulars with long-handled
+insulated cutters; a couple of cuts were made in the wire, and a
+section of it went dead. The line, at this point, had been rather
+thinly held; the defenders immediately called for air-support, and
+Jarman ordered fifteen of his remaining twenty airjeeps and five
+combat-cars into the fight. No sooner were they committed than the
+radar on the commercial airport control-tower picked up air vehicles
+approaching from the north, and the air-raid sirens began howling and
+the 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 steel
+doors and window-shutters which were electrically operated and
+centrally controlled. These slammed shut in every occupied building.
+The contragravity which had been sent to support the ground-defense at
+the south side of the Reservation turned to meet this new threat, and
+everything else available, including the four heavy airtanks, lifted
+up. Meanwhile, guns began firing from the ground and from rooftops.
+
+There had been four aircars, ordinary passenger vehicles equipped with
+machine-guns on improvised mounts, and ten big lorries converted into
+bombers, in the attack. All the lorries, and all but one of the
+makeshift fighter-escort, were shot down, but not before explosive and
+thermoconcentrate bombs were dumped all over the place. One lorry
+emptied its load of thermoconcentrate-bombs on the control-building at
+the airport, starting a raging fire and putting the radar out of
+commission. A repair-shop at the ordnance-depot was set on fire, and a
+quantity of small-arms and machine-gun ammunition piled outside for
+transportation to the outer defenses blew up. An explosive bomb landed
+on the roof of the building between Company House and the telecast
+station, blowing a hole in the roof and demolishing the upper floor.
+And another load of thermoconcentrate, missing the power-plant, set
+fire to the dry grass between it and the ruins of the native-troops
+barracks.
+
+Before the air-attack had been broken up, the soldiers of King Firkked
+and their irregular supporters were swarming through the dead section
+of wire. They had four or five big farm-tractors, nuclear-powered but
+unequipped with contragravity-generators, which they were using like
+ground-tanks of the First Century. This attack penetrated to the
+middle of the Reservation before it was stopped and the attackers
+either killed or driven out; for the first time since daybreak, the
+red-and-yellow lights came on around the power-plant.
+
+As soon as the combined air and ground attack was beaten off, von
+Schlichten ordered all his available contragravity up, flying patrols
+around the Reservation and retaliatory bombing missions against Skilk,
+and began bombarding the city with his 90-mm guns. A number of fires
+broke out, and at about 0200 a huge expanding globe of orange-red
+flame soared up from the city.
+
+"There goes Firkked's thermoconcentrate stock," he said to Paula, who
+was 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 been
+destroyed, but enough remained to pelt the Reservation and the Company
+buildings with incendiaries, when a second and more severe air-attack
+developed, consisting of forty or fifty makeshift lorry-bombers and
+fifteen aircars. The previous attack von Schlichten had viewed in the
+screen at the telecast station; it was his questionable good fortune
+to observe the second one directly, having been out inspecting the
+defenses around the ordnance-depot at the time.
+
+Like the first, the second air-attack was beaten off, or, more
+exactly, down. Most of the enemy contragravity was destroyed; at least
+two dozen vehicles crashed inside the Reservation. As in the first
+instance, there was a simultaneous ground attack from the southern
+side, with a demonstration-attack at the north end. For a while, von
+Schlichten found himself fighting hand-to-hand, first with his pistol
+and then, when his ammunition was gone, with a picked-up rifle and
+bayonet. It was full daylight before the last of the attackers was
+either killed or driven out.
+
+Five minutes later, while he was reloading his pistol-clips with
+salvaged cartridges, the _Northern Star_ came bulking over the
+mountains from the west.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+Of Princedoms Which Have Been Won by Conquest
+
+
+Holstering his pistol, he raced for the telecast station, to receive a
+call from a Colonel Khalid ib'n Talal, a Zanzibar Arab, aboard the
+approaching ship.
+
+"I've one of Jonkvank's regiments, the Jeel-Feeders, armed with Terran
+9-mm rifles and a few bazookas; I have a company of our Zirks, with
+their mounts, and a battalion of the Sixth N.U.N.I.; I also have four
+90-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 and
+unprintable military cliche. "Try landing south of the Reservation, a
+little west of the ruins of the labor-camp," he advised. "The bulk of
+Firkked's army is in that section, and I want them run out as soon as
+possible. We'll give you all the contragravity and fire support we
+can."
+
+The _Northern Star_ let down slowly, firing her guns and dropping
+bombs; as she descended, rifle-fire spurted from all her lower-deck
+portholes. There was cheering, human and Ulleran, from inside the
+battered defense-perimeter; combat-cars, airjeeps, and improvised
+bombers lifted out to strafe the Skilkans on the ground, and the four
+airtanks moved out to take position and open fire with their 90-mm's,
+helping to flush King Firkked's regulars and auxiliaries out of the
+gullies and ruins and drive them south along the mountain, away from
+where the ship would land and also away from the city of Skilk. The
+_Northern Star_ set down quickly, and troops and artillery began to be
+unloaded, 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's
+infantry regiments, and by 1300, when the fourth load arrived from
+Krink, the fighting was entirely on the eastern bank of the dry Hoork
+River. This last contingent of reenforcements was landed in the
+eastern suburbs of Skilk and began fighting their way into the city
+from the rear.
+
+It was evident, however, that the pacification of Skilk would not be
+accomplished as rapidly as von Schlichten wished--street fighting,
+against a determined enemy, is notoriously slow work--and he decided
+to risk the _Northern Star_ in an attack against the Palace itself,
+and, over the objections of Paula Quinton, Jules Keaveney, and Barney
+Mordkovitz, to lead the attack in person.
+
+Inside the city, he found that the Zirk cavalry from Krink had thrust
+up one of the broader streets to within a thousand yards of the
+Palace, and, supported by infantry, contragravity, and a couple of
+airtanks, were pounding and hacking at a mass of Skilkans whose
+uniform lack of costume prevented distinguishing between soldiery and
+townsfolk. Very few of these, he observed, seemed to be using
+firearms; with his glasses, he could see them shooting with long
+northern air-rifles and a few Takkad Sea crossbows. Either weapon
+would shoot clear through a Terran or half-way through an Ulleran at
+fifty yards, but at over two hundred they were almost harmless. There
+were a few fires still burning from the bombardment of the night
+before--Ulleran, and particularly North Ulleran, cities did not burn
+well--and the blaze which had consumed the bulk of Firkked's stock of
+thermoconcentrate fuel had long ago burned out, leaving an area of six
+or eight blocks blackened and lifeless.
+
+The ship let down, while the six combat-cars which had accompanied her
+buzzed the Palace roof, strafing it to keep it clear, and the Kragans
+aboard fired with their rifles. She came to rest on seven-eighths
+weight reduction, and even before the gangplanks were run out, the
+Kragans were dropping to the flat roof, running to stairhead
+penthouses and tossing grenades into them.
+
+The taking of the Palace was a gruesome business. Knowing exactly how
+much mercy they would have shown had they been storming the Residency,
+Firkked's soldiers and courtiers fought desperately and had to be
+exterminated, floor by floor, room by room, hallway by hallway. There
+was some attempt at escape from the ground floor as von Schlichten and
+his Kragans fought their way down from above, but the _Northern Star_
+and her escort of combat-cars and airjeeps bombed and machine-gunned
+and 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 a
+loyal native-officer of the Sixth N.U.N.I. shouted offers of quarter
+and orders to the troops to spare any who surrendered.
+
+Driving down from above, von Schlichten and his Kragans slithered over
+floors increasingly greasy with yellow Ulleran blood. He had picked up
+a broadsword at the foot of the first stairway down; a little later,
+he tossed it aside in favor of another, better balanced and with a
+better guard. There was a furious battle at the doorways of the throne
+room; finally, climbing over the bodies of their own dead and the
+enemy's, they were inside.
+
+Here there was no question of quarter whatever, at least as long as
+Firkked lived; North Ulleran nobles did not surrender under the eyes
+of their king, and North Ulleran kings did not surrender their thrones
+alive. There was also a tradition, of which von Schlichten was
+mindful, that a king must only be killed by his conqueror, in personal
+combat, with steel.
+
+With a wedge of Kragan bayonets around him and the picked-up
+broadsword in his hand, he fought his way to the throne, where Firkked
+waited, a sword in one of his upper hands, his Spear of State in the
+other, and a dagger in each lower hand. With his left hand, von
+Schlichten detached the bayonet from the rifle of one of his followers
+and went forward, 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 swords 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.
+
+It was not as bad as it looked, however. The ornate Spear of State, in
+spite of its long, cruel-looking blade, was not an especially good
+combat-weapon, at least for one hand, and Firkked seemed confused by
+the very abundance of his armament. After a few slashes and jabs, von
+Schlichten knocked the unwieldy thing from his opponent's hand. This
+raised a fearful ululation from the Skilkan nobility, who had stopped
+fighting to watch the duel; evidently it was the very worst sort of a
+bad omen. Firkked, seemingly relieved to be disencumbered of the
+thing, caught his sword in both hands and aimed a roundhouse swing at
+von Schlichten's head; von Schlichten dodged, crippled one of
+Firkked's lower hands with a quick slash, and lunged at the royal
+belly. Firkked used his remaining dagger to parry, backed a step
+closer to his throne, and took another swing with his sword, which von
+Schlichten parried on the bayonet in his left hand. Then, backing, he
+slashed at the inside of Firkked's leg with the thousand-year-old
+_coup-de-Jarnac_. Firkked, unable to support the weight of his
+dense-tissued body on one leg, stumbled; von Schlichten ran him neatly
+through the breast with his sword and through the throat with the
+bayonet.
+
+There was silence in the throne room for an instant, and then, with a
+horrible collective shriek, the Skilkans threw down their weapons. One
+of von Schlichten's Kragans slung his rifle and picked up the Spear of
+State with all four hands, taking his post ceremoniously behind the
+victor. A couple of others dragged the body of Firkked to the edge of
+the dais, and one of them drew his leaf-shaped short-sword and
+beheaded 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 King
+Firkked'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 was
+King in Skilk. If he had not dared raise his feeble hand against the
+might of the Uller Company, he would still be alive, and his Spear
+would still be borne behind him. So must all those who rise against
+the 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 it
+up, like a piece of stage property no longer required for this scene
+but 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 the
+filming of the scene, exploded. "I thought you had to kill him
+yourself in order to encourage your soldiers; I didn't think you
+wanted to make a movie of it to show your friends. I'm through; you
+can find yourself a new adjutant!"
+
+Von Schlichten tapped the cigarette on the gold-and-platinum case and
+stared at her through his monocle.
+
+"You can't resign," he told her. "Resignations of officers are not
+being accepted until the end of hostilities. In any case, I shouldn't
+care to have you go; you're the best adjutant, Hideyoshi O'Leary not
+excepted, I ever had. Sit down, colonel." He lit the cigarette. "Your
+politico-military education still needs a little filling in.
+
+"At Grank, we have two ships. One is the _Northern Lights_, sister
+ship of the _Northern Star_. The other is the cruiser _Procyon_, the
+only 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 of
+courts-martial, when things get stabilized to a point where we can
+afford such luxuries. As it is, we need those ships desperately, and
+as soon as he gets in, I'm sending Hideyoshi O'Leary to Grank with
+the _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 of
+the crowbars he's going to use."
+
+"Oh! I get it!" Her eyes widened with pleasure at having finally
+caught on; she accepted the cigarette and the light von Schlichten
+offered. "Good old _nervenkrieg_!"
+
+"Yes. A little idea I adapted from my Nazi ancestors of four hundred
+and fifty years ago. Hideyoshi's going to treat King Yoorkerk to a
+movie-show. Want to bet he won't loosen up and release _Procyon_ and
+_Northern Lights_ and unblockade the Grank Residency after he sees
+that shot of Firkked's head leering at him off the point of that
+overgrown asagai? As I said, that's only the last scene, too. I've
+been having scenes shot all through this fight; some of them are
+really horrifying."
+
+"But why did you have to fight Firkked yourself?" she asked. "You took
+an awful chance, with two hands to his four."
+
+"Not so awful, remember what I told you about the physical limitations
+of Ullerans. But I had to kill him myself, with a sword; according to
+local custom that makes me King of Skilk."
+
+"Why, your Majesty!" She rose and curtsied mockingly. "But I thought
+you were going to make Jonkvank King of Skilk."
+
+He shook his head. "Just Viceroy," he corrected. "I'm handing the
+Spear 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't
+be much more at Krink either. That'll take a little longer--there'll
+have to be military missions, and economic missions, and
+trade-agreements, and all the rest of it, first--but he's on the way
+to becoming a puppet-prince."
+
+Half an hour later, a large and excessively ornate air-launch,
+specially built at the Konkrook shipyards for King Jonkvank, was
+sighted coming over the mountain from the east. An escort of
+combat-cars was sent to meet it, and a battalion of Kragans and the
+survivors of Firkked's court were drawn up on the Palace roof.
+
+"His Majesty, Jonkvank, King of Krink!" the former herald of King
+Firkked's court, now herald to King Carlos von Schlichten, shouted,
+banging on a brass shield with the flat of his sword, as Jonkvank
+descended from his launch, attended by a group of his nobles and his
+Spear of State, with Hideyoshi O'Leary and Francis N. Shapiro
+shepherding them. As the guests advanced across the roof, the herald
+banged again on his shield.
+
+"His Majesty, Carlos von Schlichten,"--which came out more or less as
+Karlok vonk Zlikdenk--"King, by right of combat, of Skilk!"
+
+Von Schlichten advanced to meet his fellow-monarch, his own Spear of
+State, with Firkked's head still grinning from it, two paces behind
+him.
+
+Jonkvank stopped, his face contorted with saurian rage.
+
+"What is this?" he demanded. "You told me that I could be King of
+Skilk; 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 addressing
+another. "My word was that you should reign in Skilk, and my word
+stands. But these things must be done decently, according to custom
+and law. I killed Firkked in single combat. Had I not done so, the
+Spear of Skilk would have been left lying, for any of the young of
+Firkked 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 is
+mine, and what is mine I can give as I please. I now give you the
+Spear of Skilk, to carry in my name, as I promised."
+
+The Kragan who was carrying the ceremonial weapon tossed the head of
+Firkked from the point; another Kragan kicked it aside and advanced to
+wipe the spear-blade with a rag. Von Schlichten took the Spear and
+gave it to Jonkvank.
+
+"This is not good!" one of the Skilkan nobles protested. He had a
+better right than any of the others to protest; he had, a few hours
+before, ridden in at the head of a company of his retainers to swear
+loyalty to the Company. "That you should rule over us, yes. You killed
+Firkked in single combat, and you are the soldier of the Company,
+which is mighty, as all here have seen. But that this foreigner be
+given the Spear of Skilk, that is not good!"
+
+Some of the others, emboldened by his example, were jabbering
+agreement.
+
+"Listen, all of you!" von Schlichten shouted. "Here is no question of
+Krink 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. He
+will come and live among you, and later he will travel back and forth
+between Krink and Skilk, and he will leave the Spear of Krink in
+Krink, and the Spear of Skilk in Skilk, and in Skilk he will be a
+Skilkan."
+
+That seemed to satisfy everybody except Jonkvank, and he had wit
+enough not to make an issue of it. He even had the Spear of Krink
+carried back aboard his launch, out of sight, and when he accompanied
+von 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 with
+von Schlichten, in the room that had been King Firkked's bedchamber,
+however, he exploded: "What is all this foolishness which you promised
+these people in my name and which I must now carry out? That I am to
+leave the Spear of Skilk in Skilk and the Spear of Krink in Krink, and
+come here to live...."
+
+"You wish to hold Skilk?" von Schlichten asked.
+
+"I intend to hold Skilk. To begin with, there shall be a great killing
+here. A very great killing: of all those who advised that fool of a
+Firkked to start this business; of those who gave shelter to the false
+prophet, Rakkeed, when he was here; of the faithless priests who gave
+ear to his abominable heresies and allowed him to spew out his
+blasphemies in the temples; of those who sent spies to Krink, to
+corrupt and pervert my soldiers and nobles; of those who...."
+
+"All that is as it should be," von Schlichten agreed. "Except that it
+must be done quickly and all at once, before the memories of these
+crimes fade from the minds of the people. And great care must be taken
+to kill only those who can be proven to be guilty of something; thus
+it will be said that the justice of King Jonkvank is terrible to
+evildoers but a protection and a shield to those who keep the peace
+and obey the laws. Thus you will gain the name of being a wise and
+just king. And when the priests are to be killed it should be done
+under the direction of those other priests who were faithful to the
+gods and whom King Firkked drove out of their temples, and it must be
+done in the name of the gods. Thus will you be esteemed a pious, and
+not an impious, king. As to why you must be a Skilkan in Skilk, you
+heard the words of Flurknurk, and how the others agreed with him. It
+must 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 do
+so, nor must you increase the taxes, and you must not confiscate the
+estates of those who are put to death, for the death of parents is
+always forgiven before the loss of patrimonies. And you should select
+certain Skilkan nobles, and become the father of their young, and
+above all, you must leave none of the young of Firkked alive, to raise
+rebellion 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 cannot
+prevail against you, or against the Company as long as you are the
+Company's upper sword-arm!"
+
+Honesty tempted von Schlichten, for a moment, to disclaim originality
+for the principles he had just enunciated, even at the price of trying
+to pronounce the name of Niccolo Machiavelli with a geek-speaker. On
+second thought, however, considerations of policy restrained him. If
+Jonkvank ever heard of _The Prince_, nothing would satisfy him short
+of an Ulleran translation, and von Schlichten would have been just
+about as happy over an Ulleran translation of a complete set of
+Bethe-cycle bomb specifications.
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+The Shadow of Niflheim
+
+
+The sun slid lower and lower toward the horizon behind them as the
+aircar bulleted south along the broad valley and dry bed of the Hoork
+River, nearing the zone of equal day and night. Hassan Bogdanoff drove
+while Harry Quong finished his lunch, then changed places to begin his
+own. Von Schlichten got two bottles of beer from the refrigerated
+section of the lunch-hamper and opened one for Paula Quinton and one
+for himself.
+
+"What are we going to do with these geeks,"--she was using the nasty
+and derogatory word unconsciously and by custom, now--"after this is
+all 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 of
+political power in every part of this planet that we occupy, and as
+soon as we're consolidated around and north of Takkad Sea, we're going
+to have to move in elsewhere," he replied. "Keegark, Konkrook, and the
+Free Cities, of course, will be relatively easy. They're in arms
+against us now, and we can take them over by force. We had to make
+that deal with Jonkvank, or, rather, I did, so that will be a slower
+process, but we'll get it done in time. If I know that pair as well as
+I think I do, Jonkvank and Yoorkerk will give us plenty of pretexts,
+before long. Then, we can start giving them government by law instead
+of by royal decree, and real courts of justice; put an end to the
+head-payment system, and to these arbitrary mass arrests and
+tax-delinquency imprisonments that are nothing but slave-raids by the
+geek princes on their own people. And, gradually, abolish serfdom. In
+a couple of centuries, this planet will be fit to admit to the
+Federation, like Odin and Freya."
+
+"Well, won't that depend a lot on whom the Company sends here to take
+Harrington'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 long
+time to come, and even the Banking Cartel and the mercantile interests
+in the Company are going to realize that, and see the necessity for
+taking political control. The Federation Government owns a bigger
+interest in the Company than the public realizes, too; they've always
+favored it. And just to make sure, I'm sending Hid O'Leary to Terra on
+the next ship, to make a full report on the situation."
+
+"You think it'll be cleared up by then? The _City of Montevideo_ is
+due in from Niflheim in a little under three months."
+
+"It'll have to be cleared up by then. We can't keep this war going
+more 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 been
+progressing, at that," he said. "You know, a lot of professional
+officers, even up to field rank in the combat branches, seem to think
+that ammo comes down miraculously from Heaven, in contragravity
+lorries, every time they pray into a radio for it. It doesn't; it has
+to be produced as fast as it's expended, and we haven't been doing
+that. So we'll have to lick these geeks before it runs out, because we
+can't lick them with gunbutts and bayonets."
+
+"Well, how about nuclear weapons?" Paula asked. "I hate to suggest
+it--I know what they did on Mimir, and Fenris, and Midgard, and what
+they did on Terra, during the First Century. But it may be our only
+chance."
+
+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, the
+next-to-last--thing I'd want to see on Uller. Fortunately, or
+unfortunately, it's a decision I won't have to make. There isn't a
+single nuclear bomb on the planet. The Company's always refused to
+allow 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 make
+A-bombs, at least."
+
+"There isn't anybody here who even knows how to make one. Most of our
+nuclear engineers could work one up, in about three months, when we'd
+either not need one or not be alive."
+
+"Dr. Gomes, who came in on the _Pretoria_, two weeks ago, can make
+them," she contradicted. "He built at least a dozen of them on
+Niflheim, to use in activating volcanoes and bringing ore-bearing lava
+to the surface."
+
+Von Schlichten's hand, bringing his lighter to the tip of his
+cigarette, 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 had
+to do that, when a question of interstellar time-relations arose.
+
+"About three-fifty days ago, Galactic Standard. They'd put off the
+first shot, six bombs, before I got in from Terra. I saw the second
+shot a day or so before I left Niflheim on the _Canberra_. Dr. Gomes
+had 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?" he
+asked 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; he
+came to Uller on the _Canberra_. Dr. Murillo was sorry to lose him. He
+understood Lingua Terra perfectly; Dr. Murillo could talk to him, the
+way 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," von
+Schlichten told her. "Especially Kali.... Harry! See if you can get
+some more speed out of this can. I want to get to Konkrook while it's
+still there!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was full dark when Konkrook came in view beyond the East Konk
+Mountains, a lurid smear on the underside of the clouds, and, at
+Gongonk Island and at the Company farms to the south, a couple of
+bunches of searchlights fingering about in the sky. When von
+Schlichten turned on the outside sound-pickup, he could hear the
+distant tom-tomming of heavy guns, and the crash of shells and bombs.
+Keeping the car high enough to be above the trajectories of incoming
+shells, Harry Quong circled over the city while Hassan Bogdanoff
+talked to Gongonk Island on the radio.
+
+The city was in a bad way. There were seventy-five to a hundred big
+fires going, and a new one started in a rising ball of thermoconcentrate
+flame while they watched. The three gun-cutters, _Elmoran_, _Gaucho_,
+and _Bushranger_, and about fifty big freight lorries converted to
+bombers, were shuttling back and forth between the island and the city.
+The Royal Palace was on fire from end to end, and the entire waterfront
+and industrial district were in flames. Combat-cars and airjeeps were
+diving in to shell and rocket and machine-gun streets and buildings. He
+saw six big bomber-lorries move in dignified procession to unload, one
+after the other, on a row of buildings along what the Terrans called
+South Tenth Street, and on the roofs of buildings a block away, red and
+blue flares were burning, and he could see figures, both human and
+Ulleran, setting up mortars and machine-guns.
+
+Landing on the top stage of Company House, on the island, they were
+met by a Terran whom von Schlichten had seen, a few days ago, bossing
+native-labor at the spaceport, but who was now wearing a major's
+insignia. He greeted von Schlichten with a salute which he must have
+learned from some movie about the ancient French Foreign Legion. Von
+Schlichten 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; when
+von Schlichten and Paula reached the office, everybody was crowded at
+the door to greet them: Themistocles M'zangwe, his arm in a sling;
+Hans Meyerstein, the Johannesburg lawyer, who seemed to have even more
+Bantu blood than the brigadier-general; Morton Buhrmann, the
+Commercial Superintendent; Laviola, the Fiscal Secretary; a dozen or
+so other officers and civil administrators. There was a hubbub of
+greetings, and he was pleased to detect as much real warmth from the
+civil administration crowd as from the officers.
+
+"Well, I'm glad to be back with you," he replied, generally. "And let
+me present Colonel Paula Quinton, my new adjutant; Hid O'Leary's on
+duty in the north.... Them, this was a perfectly splendid piece of
+work 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 behaved
+simply above praise." He turned to King Kankad, who was wearing a pair
+of automatics in shoulder-holsters for his upper hands and another
+pair in cross-body belt holsters for his lower. "And what I've said
+for anybody else goes double for you, Kankad," he added, clapping the
+Kragan on the shoulder.
+
+"All he did was save the lot of us!" M'zangwe said. "We were hanging
+on by our fingernails here till his people started coming in. And
+then, after you sent the _Aldebaran_...."
+
+"Where is the _Aldebaran_, by the way? I didn't see her when I came
+in."
+
+"Based on Kankad's, flying bombardment against Keegark, and keeping
+an eye out for those ships. Prinsloo caught the _De Wett_ in the docks
+there and smashed her, but the _Jan Smuts_ got away, and we haven't
+been able to locate the _Oom Paul Kruger_, either. They're probably
+both 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 this
+long, and Orgzild's had plenty of time to realize it," von Schlichten
+said. "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 rid
+of them.... How's Hid been making out, at Grank, by the way? I didn't
+have 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, tell
+him, somebody!" ... "No, get Hid on the screen; it's his story!"
+
+Somebody busied himself at the switchboard. The rest of them sat down
+at the long conference-table. Laviola and Meyerstein and Buhrmann were
+especially obsequious in seating von Schlichten in Sid Harrington's
+old chair, and in getting a chair for Paula Quinton. After a while,
+the jumbled colors on the big screen resolved themselves into an image
+of Hideyoshi O'Leary, grinning like a pussy-cat beside an empty
+goldfish-bowl.
+
+"Well, what happened?" von Schlichten asked, after they had exchanged
+greetings. "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 that
+he is and always was the true and ever-loving friend of the Company;
+he acted to prevent quote certain disloyal elements unquote from
+harming the people and property of the Company. _Procyon's_ on the way
+to Konkrook. I'm holding _Northern Lights_ here and _Northern Star_ at
+Skilk; where do you want them sent?"
+
+"Leave _Northern Star_ at Skilk, for the time being. Tell the
+Company's great and good friend King Yoorkerk that the Company expects
+him to contribute some soldiers for the campaign here and against
+Keegark, when that starts; be sure you get the best-armed and
+best-trained regiments he has, and get them down here as soon as
+possible. Don't send any of your Kragans or Karamessinis' troops here,
+though; hold them in Grank till we make sure of the quality of
+Yoorkerk's friendship."
+
+"Well, general, I think we can be pretty sure, now. You see, he turned
+Rakkeed the Prophet over to me...."
+
+"_What_?" Von Schlichten felt his monocle starting to slip and took a
+firmer 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 in
+case we lost; he was also holding Rakkeed at the Palace in case we
+won. Of course, Rakkeed thought he was an honored guest, right up till
+Yoorkerk's guards dragged him in and turned him over to us...."
+
+"That geek," von Schlichten said, "is too smart for his own good. Some
+of these days he's going to play both ends against the middle and both
+ends'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 to
+sell us a ringer."
+
+O'Leary shook his head solemnly. "I thought of that, right away. This
+is the real article; Karamessinis' Constabulary and Intelligence
+officers certified him for me. What do you want me to do, send him
+down to Konkrook?"
+
+Von Schlichten shook his head. "Get the priests of the locally
+venerated gods to put him on trial for blasphemy, heresy,
+impersonating a prophet, practicing witchcraft without a license, or
+any other ecclesiastical crimes you or they can think of. Then, after
+he's been given a scrupulously fair trial, have the soldiers of King
+Yoorkerk behead him, and stick his head up over a big sign, in all
+native languages, 'Rakkeed the False Prophet.' And have audio-visuals
+made of the whole business, trial and execution, and be sure that the
+priests and Yoorkerk's officers are in the foreground and our people
+stay out of the pictures."
+
+"Soap and towels, for General Pontius von Pilate!" Paula Quinton
+called out.
+
+"That's an idea; I was wondering what to give Yoorkerk as a
+testimonial present," Hideyoshi O'Leary said. "A nice thirty-piece
+silver set!"
+
+"Quite appropriate," von Schlichten approved. "Well, you did a first-class
+job. I want you back with us as soon as possible--incidentally, you're now
+a brigadier-general--but not till the situation at Grank-Krink-Skilk is
+stabilized. And, eventually, you'll probably have to set up permanent
+headquarters in the north."
+
+After Hideyoshi O'Leary had thanked him and signed off, and the screen
+was dark again, he turned to the others.
+
+"Well, gentlemen, I don't think we need worry too much about the
+north, for the next few days. How long do you estimate this operation
+against Konkrook's going to take, to complete pacification, Them?"
+
+"How complete is complete pacification, general?" Themistocles
+M'zangwe wanted to know. "If you mean to the end of organized
+resistance by larger than squad-size groups, I'd say three days, give
+or take twelve hours. Of course, there'll be small groups holding out
+for a couple of weeks, particularly in the farming country and back in
+the forest...."
+
+"We can forget them; that's minor-tactics stuff. We'll need to keep
+some kind of an occupation force here for some time; they can deal
+with 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 a
+campaign against the Free Cities on the Eastern Shore."
+
+"Begging your pardon, general, but reduce is a mild word for what we
+ought to do to Keegark," Hans Meyerstein said. "We ought to raze that
+city as flat as a football field, and then play football on it with
+King Orgzild's head."
+
+"Any special reason?" von Schlichten asked. "In addition to the
+Blount-Lemoyne massacre, that is?"
+
+"I should say so, general!" Themistocles M'zangwe backed Meyerstein
+up. "Bob, you tell him."
+
+Colonel Robert Grinell, the Intelligence officer, got up and took the
+cigar 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 genesis
+of this business, lately," he said. "From up north, it probably looked
+like an all-Rakkeed show; that's how it was supposed to look. But the
+whole thing was hatched at Keegark, by King Orgzild. We've managed to
+capture a few prominent Konkrookans"--he named half a dozen--"who've
+been made to talk, and a number of others have come in voluntarily and
+furnished information. Orgzild conceived the scheme in the beginning;
+Rakkeed was just the messenger-boy. My face gets the color of the
+Company trademark every time I think that the whole thing was planned
+for over a year, right under our noses, even to the signal that was to
+touch 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 went
+on to elaborate, while von Schlichten tried to keep the impatience out
+of his face. Beside him, Paula Quinton was fidgeting, too; she was
+thinking, as he was, of what King Orgzild and Prince Gorkrink were
+doing now. "And I know positively that the order for the poisoning of
+Sid Harrington came from the Keegarkan Embassy here, and was passed
+down through Gurgurk and Keeluk to this geek here who actually put the
+poison in the whiskey."
+
+"Yes. I agree that Keegark should be wiped out, and I'd like to have
+an immediate estimate on the time it'll take to build a nuclear bomb
+to do the job. One of the old-fashioned plutonium fission A-bombs will
+do quite well."
+
+Everybody turned quickly. There was a momentary silence, and then
+Colonel Evan Colbert, of the Fourth Kragan Rifles, the senior officer
+under Themistocles M'zangwe, found his voice.
+
+"If that's an order, general, we'll get it done. But I'd like to
+remind you, first, of the Company policy on nuclear weapons on this
+planet."
+
+"I'm aware of that policy. I'm also aware of the reason for it. We've
+been compelled, because of the lack of natural fuel on Uller, to set
+up nuclear power reactors and furnish large quantities of plutonium to
+the geeks to fuel them. The Company doesn't want the natives here
+learning of the possibility of using nuclear energy for destructive
+purposes. Well, gentlemen, that's a dead issue. They've learned it,
+thanks to our people on Niflheim, and unless my estimate is entirely
+wrong, King Orgzild already has at least one First-Century
+Nagasaki-type plutonium bomb. I am inclined to believe that he had at
+least one such bomb, probably more, at the time when orders were sent
+to his embassy here, for the poisoning of Governor-General
+Harrington."
+
+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 his
+own, when the others finally realized what he had told them.
+
+"That's impossible!" somebody down the table shouted, as though that
+would make it so. Another--one of the civil administration
+crowd--almost exactly repeated Jules Keaveney's words at Skilk: "What
+the hell was Intelligence doing, sleeping?"
+
+"General von Schlichten," Colonel Grinell took oblique cognizance of
+the question, "you've just made, by implication, a most grave charge
+against my department. If you're not mistaken in what you've just
+said, I deserve to be court-martialed."
+
+"I couldn't bring charges against you, colonel; if it were a
+court-martial matter, I'd belong in the dock with you," von Schlichten
+told him. "It seems, though, that a piece of vital information was
+possessed by those who were unable to evaluate it, and until this
+afternoon, I was ignorant of its existence. Colonel Quinton, suppose
+you 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, and
+it'll be he who'll have to build ours."
+
+"That's right." He looked around. "Where's Dr. Lourenço Gomes, the
+nuclear engineer who came in on the _Pretoria_, two weeks ago? Send
+out for him, and get him in here at once."
+
+There was another awkward silence. Then Kent Pickering, the chief of
+the Gongonk Island power-plant, cleared his throat.
+
+"Why, general, didn't you know? Dr. Gomes is dead. He was killed
+during 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 the
+monocle to keep from flinching physically as well, trying to freeze
+out of his face the consternation he felt.
+
+"That's bad, Kent," he said. "Very bad. I'd been counting heavily on
+Dr. Gomes to design a bomb of our own."
+
+"Well, general, if you please." That was Air-Commodore Leslie
+Hargreaves. "You say you suspect that King Orgzild has developed a
+nuclear bomb. If that's true, it's a horrible danger to all of us. But
+I find it hard to believe that the Keegarkans could have done so, with
+their resources and at their technological level. Now, if it had been
+the Kragans, that would have been different, but...."
+
+"Paula, you'd better carry on and explain what you told me, and add
+anything else you can think of that might be relevant.... Is that
+sound-recorder turned on? Then turn it on, somebody; we want this
+taped."
+
+Paula rose and began talking: "I suppose you all understand what
+conditions are on Niflheim, and how these Ulleran native workers are
+employed; however, I'd better begin by explaining the purpose for
+which these nuclear bombs were designed and used...."
+
+He smiled; she realized that he needed time to think, and she was
+stalling to provide it. He drew a pencil and pad toward him and began
+doodling in a bored manner, deliberately closing his mind to what she
+was saying. There were two assumptions, he considered: first, that
+King Orgzild already possessed a nuclear bomb which he could use when
+he chose, and, second, that in the absence of Dr. Gomes, such a bomb
+could only be produced on Gongonk Island after lengthy experimental
+work. If both of these assumptions were true, he had just heard the
+death-sentence of every Terran on Uller. The first he did not for a
+moment doubt. The reasons for making it were too good. He dismissed it
+from further consideration and concentrated on the second.
+
+"... what's known as a Nagasaki-type bomb, the first type of
+plutonium-bomb developed," Paula was saying. "Really, it's a
+technological 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 military
+standpoint, was as obsolete as the flintlock musket had been at the
+time of the Second World War. He reviewed, quickly, the history of
+weapons-development since the beginning of the Atomic Era. The
+emphasis, since the end of the Second World War, had all been on
+nuclear weapons and rocket-missiles. There had been the H-bomb, itself
+obsolescent, and the Bethe-cyle bomb, and the subneutron bomb, and the
+omega-ray bomb, and the nega-matter bomb, and then the end of
+civilization in the Northern Hemisphere and the rise of the new
+civilization in South America and South Africa and Australia. Today,
+the small-arms and artillery his troops were using were merely slight
+refinements on the weapons of the First Century, and all the modern
+nuclear weapons used by the Terran Federation were produced at the
+Space Navy base on Mars, by a small force of experts whose skills were
+almost as closed to the general scientific and technical world as the
+secrets of a medieval guild. The old A-bomb was an historical
+curiosity, and there was nobody on Uller who had more than a layman's
+knowledge of the intricate technology of modern nuclear weapons. There
+were plenty of good nuclear-power engineers on Gongonk Island, but how
+long 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 General
+von Schlichten and King Kankad talking to one another. I haven't any
+idea whether or not Gorkrink could read Lingua Terra, or, if so, what
+papers or plans he might have seen."
+
+"Just a minute, Paula," he said. "Colonel Grinell, what does your
+branch 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 the
+story we got was that he'd fallen out of favor at court and had been
+exiled. I can see, now, that that was planted to mislead us. As to
+whether or not he can read Lingua Terra, my belief is that he can. We
+know that he can understand it when spoken. He could have learned to
+read at one of those schools Mohammed Ferriera set up, ten or fifteen
+years ago."
+
+"And Dr. Gomes and Dr. Murillo and Dr. Livesey left papers and plans
+lying around all over the place," Paula added. "If he went to Niflheim
+as a spy, he could have copied almost anything."
+
+"Well, there you have it," von Schlichten said. "When Gorkrink found
+out that plutonium can be used for bombs, he began gathering all the
+information he could. And as soon as he got home, he turned it all
+over to Pappy Orgzild."
+
+"That still doesn't mean that the Kee-geeks were able to do anything
+with it," Air-Commodore Hargreaves argued.
+
+"I think it does," von Schlichten differed. "As soon as Orgzild would
+hear about the possibility of making a plutonium bomb, he'd set up an
+A-bomb project, and don't think of it in terms of the old First
+Century Manhattan Project. There would be no problem of producing
+fissionables--we've been scattering refined plutonium over this planet
+like confetti."
+
+"Well, an A-bomb's a pretty complicated piece of mechanism, even if
+you have the plans for it," Kent Pickering said. "As I recall, there
+have to be several subcritical masses of plutonium, or U-235, or
+whatever, blown together by shaped charges of explosive, all of which
+have to be fired simultaneously. That would mean a lot of electrical
+fittings that I can't see these geeks making by hand."
+
+"I can," Paula said. "Have you ever seen the work these native
+jewelers do? And didn't you tell me about a clockwork thing they have
+at 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 electrical
+equipment."
+
+"All right, they could have built an A-bomb," Buhrmann said. "But did
+they?"
+
+"We assume they tried to. Gorkrink got back from Nif on the Canberra,
+three months ago," von Schlichten said. "If Orgzild decided to build
+an A-bomb, he wouldn't give the signal for this uprising until he
+either had one or knew he couldn't make one, and he wouldn't give up
+trying in only three months. Therefore, I think we can assume that he
+succeeded, and had succeeded at the time he sent Gorkrink here to get
+that four tons of plutonium we let him have, and, incidentally, to
+tell Ghroghrank to pass the word to have Sid Harrington poisoned
+according 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's
+plan," Grinell said. "Back as far as geek history goes, the Kings of
+Keegark have been trying to conquer Konkrook and the Free Cities and
+make themselves masters of the whole Takkad Sea area. Let Konkrook
+wipe 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 us
+out and then move in on Konkrook. I think that as long as we're
+fighting here, he'll wait. The more damage we do to Konkrook, the
+easier 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 of
+Konkrook was being projected from an overhead pickup.
+
+"I'll agree on the second half of it," von Schlichten said. "And we'll
+also have to set up some kind of security-patrol system against
+bombers from Keegark. And as soon as _Procyon_ gets here, we'll have
+to send her out to hunt down and destroy those two Boer-class
+freighters, the _Jan Smuts_ and the _Kruger_. And we'll have to
+arrange for protection of Kankad's Town; that's sure to be another of
+Orgzild'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 for
+any length of time?"
+
+M'zangwe shook his head. "When we divert contragravity to
+security-patrol work, the ground action'll slow up a little, of
+course. But the geeks are about knocked out, now."
+
+"The hell with it, then. I doubt if we'd be able to buy much time from
+Orgzild by delaying victory in the city, and we'll probably need the
+troops 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 Piet
+van Reenen, and...." He nodded to himself. "I can get six or eight of
+them in here in about twenty minutes; I'll have a project set up and
+working in a couple of hours. There has to be somebody qualified on
+duty at the plant, all the time, of course, but...."
+
+"All right, call them in. I want the bomb finished by yesterday
+afternoon. And everybody with you, and you, yourself, had better
+revert to civilian status. This isn't something you can do by the
+numbers, and I don't want anybody who doesn't know what it's all about
+pulling rank on your outfit. Go ahead, call in your gang, and let me
+know what you'll be able to do, as soon as possible."
+
+He turned to Hargreaves. "Les, you'll have charge of flying the
+security patrols, and doing anything else you can to keep Orgzild from
+bombing us before we can bomb him. You'll have priority on everything
+second only to Pickering."
+
+Hargreaves nodded. "As you say, general, we'll have to protect
+Kankad's, as well as this place. It's about five hundred miles from
+here 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-load
+capacities of airboats, and distances. In about five minutes, he would
+have a programme worked out; in the meantime, von Schlichten could
+only be patient and contain himself. He looked along the table, and
+caught sight of a thin-faced, saturnine-looking man in a green shirt,
+with a colonel's three concentric circles marked on the shoulders in
+silver-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 of
+a crew could be put on one of them?"
+
+Pearson laughed. "Crew of what, general? White mice, or trained
+cockroaches? There isn't room inside one of those things for anything
+bigger 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 in
+length, with a fifteen-foot ball at either end, and everything's in
+sections, which can be taken out. Our maintenance-gang goes up in a
+thing like a small spaceship, and either works on the outside in
+spacesuits, or puts in a new section and brings the unserviceable one
+down 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, and
+connected at the middle; airtight, of course, and pressurized and
+insulated like a spaceship. One side's living quarters for a six-man
+crew--sometimes the gang's out for as long as a week at a time--and
+the other side's a workshop."
+
+That sounded interesting. With contragravity, of course, terms like
+"escape-velocity" and "mass-ratio" were of purely antiquarian
+interest.
+
+"How long," he asked Pearson, "would it take to fit that vehicle with
+a full set of detection instruments--radar, infrared and ultra-violet
+vision, electron-telescope, heat and radiation detectors, the whole
+works--and spot it about a hundred to a hundred and fifty miles above
+Keegark?"
+
+"That I couldn't say, general," Emmett Pearson replied. "It'd have to
+be a shipyard job, and a lot of that stuff's clear outside my
+department. 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 service
+those orbital telecast-relay stations of his. He'll tell you what it's
+like. I want it fitted with every sort of detection device that can be
+crammed into or onto it, and spotted above Keegark. It should, of
+course, be high enough to cover not only the Keegark area, but
+Konkrook, Kankad's, and the lower Hoork and Konk river-valleys."
+
+"Yes, I get it." Hargreaves snatched up a phone, punched out a
+combination, and began talking rapidly into it in a low voice. After a
+while, he hung up. "All right, Mr. Pearson--Colonel Pearson, I mean.
+Have your space-buggy sent around to the shipyard. My boys'll fix it
+up." He made a note on another piece of paper. "If we live through
+this, I'm going to have a couple of supra-atmosphere ships in service
+on this planet.... Now, general, I have a tentative setup. We're
+going to need the _Elmoran_ for patrol work south and east of
+Konkrook, and the _Gaucho_ and _Bushranger_ to the north and
+northeast, based on Kankad's. We'll keep the _Aldebaran_ at Kankad's,
+and use her for emergencies. And we'll have patrols of light
+contragravity like this." He handed a map, with red-pencil and
+blue-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 with
+radiation-detectors. These geeks are quite well aware of
+radiation-danger from fissionables, but they're accustomed to the
+ordinary industrial-power reactors, which are either very lightly
+shielded or unshielded on top. We want to find out where Orgzild's
+bomb-plant is."
+
+"Yes, general, as soon as we can get radiation detectors sent out to
+Kankad's, we'll have a couple of fast aircars fitted with them for
+that job."
+
+"We have detectors, at our laboratory and reaction-plant," Kankad
+said. "And my people can make more, as soon as you want them." He
+thought for a moment. "Perhaps I should go to the town, now. I could
+be of more use there than here."
+
+Kent Pickering, who had been talking with his experts at a table
+apart, returned.
+
+"We've set up a programme, general," he said. "It's going to be a lot
+harder than I'd anticipated. None of us seem to know exactly what we
+have to do in building one of those things. You see, the uranium or
+plutonium fission-bomb's been obsolete for over four hundred years. It
+was a classified-secret matter long after its obsolescence, because it
+hadn't been rendered any the less deadly by being superseded--there
+was that A-bomb that the Christian Anarchist Party put together at
+Buenos Aires in 378 A.E., for instance. And then, after it was
+declassified, it had been so far superseded that it was of only
+antiquarian interest; the textbooks dealt with it only in general
+terms. The principles, of course, are part of basic nuclear science;
+the "secret of the A-bomb" was just a bag of engineering tricks that
+we don't have, and which we will have to rediscover. Design of
+tampers, design of the chemical-explosive charges to bring subcritical
+masses together, case-design, detonating mechanism, things like that."
+
+"The complete data on even the old Hiroshima and Nagasaki types is
+still in existence, of course. You can get it at places like the
+University of Montevideo Library, or Jan Smuts Memorial Library at
+Cape Town. But we don't have it here. We're detailing a couple of
+junior technicians to make a search of the library here on Gongonk
+Island, but we're not optimistic. We just can't afford to pass up any
+chance, even when it approaches zero-probability."
+
+Von Schlichten nodded. "That's about what I'd expected," he said. "I
+suppose Gomes got his data out of one of the dustier storage-stacks at
+Jan Smuts or Montevideo, in the first place.... Well, I still want
+that bomb finished by yesterday afternoon, but since that's
+impractical, you'll have to take a little--but as little as
+possible--longer."
+
+"What are we going to do about publicity on this?" Howlett, the
+personnel man, asked. "We don't want this getting out in garbled
+form--though how it could be made worse by garbling I couldn't
+guess--and having the troops watching the sky over their shoulders and
+going into a panic as soon as they saw something they didn't
+understand."
+
+"No, we don't. I've seen a couple of troop-panics," von Schlichten
+said. "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 and
+dropped first. As to the Kragans.... What do you think, King Kankad?"
+
+"Tell them that we are building a bomb to destroy Keegark; that we are
+running short of ammunition, and that it is our only hope of finishing
+the war before the ammunition is gone," Kankad said. "Tell them
+something of what sort of a bomb it is. But do not tell them that King
+Orgzild already has such a bomb. Old Kankad, who made me out of
+himself, told me about how our people fled in panic from the weapons
+of the Terrans, when your people and mine were still enemies. This
+thing is to the weapons they faced then as those weapons were to the
+old Kragans' spears and bows.... And when the geeks from Grank come
+here, tell them that we are winning and that if they fight well, they
+can share the loot of Konkrook and Keegark."
+
+Von Schlichten looked up at the big screen. Already, Themistocles
+M'zangwe had ordered the Channel Battery to reduce fire; the big guns
+were firing singly, in thirty-second-interval salvos. There was less
+bombing, too; contragravity was being drawn out of the battle.
+
+"Well, we all have things to do," he said, "and I think we've
+discussed everything there is to discuss. Anybody think of anything
+we've forgotten?... Then we're adjourned."
+
+He and Paula Quinton took the elevator to the roof, and sat side by
+side, silently watching the conflagration that was raging across the
+channel and the nearer flashes of the big guns along the island's
+city 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 a
+magician," he said. "Pickering'll be a magician, I mean; he's the boy
+who'll save our bacon, if it's saveable." He looked somberly across
+the flame-reflecting water. "Let's not kid ourselves; we're just
+kicking 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 to
+these people on this planet, after we're atomized?"
+
+"That I don't want to think about. Kankad's Town will get the second
+bomb; Orgzild won't dare leave the Kragans after he's wiped us out.
+Yoorkerk and Jonkvank, in the north, will turn on Keaveney and Shapiro
+and Karamessinis and Hid O'Leary and wipe them out. And when the next
+ship gets in here and they find out what happened, they'll send the
+Federation Space Navy, and this planet'll get it worse than Fenris
+did. They'll blast anything that has four arms and a face like a
+lizard...."
+
+Half a dozen aircars lifted suddenly from the airport and streaked
+away to the northeast. As they went past, in the light of the burning
+city, he could see that at least three of them had multiple
+rocket-launchers on top. In a matter of seconds, a gun-cutter raced
+after them, and a second, which had been over Konkrook, jettisoned a
+bomb 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 lights
+showed over the East Konk Mountains. They weren't the flashes of
+explosions; some were magnesium flares, and some were the lights of a
+ship.
+
+"That's _Procyon_, from Grank," he said. "Everybody gets a good mark
+for this--detection stations, interceptors, gun-cutters. If that had
+been it, there'd have been a good chance of stopping it." He felt
+better than he had since Pickering had told him that Lourenço Gomes
+was dead. "It's a good thing Gorkrink didn't pick up any dope on
+guided missiles, while he was at it. As long as they have to deliver
+it with contragravity, we have a chance."
+
+They rose from the balustrade where they had been sitting, and, for
+the first time, he discovered that he had had his left arm over her
+shoulder and that she had had her right hand resting on the point of
+his right hip, just above his pistol. He picked up the folder of
+papers she had been carrying, and put her into the elevator ahead of
+him, and it was only when they parted on the living-quarters level
+that he recalled having followed the older protocol of gallantry
+rather 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 to
+the floor and sprinted for the bathroom. While he was fussing to get
+the shower adjusted to the right temperature, he bludgeoned his
+conscience by telling himself that a wide-awake general is more good
+than a half-asleep general, that there was nothing he could do but
+hope that Hargreaves's patrols would keep the bomb away from Konkrook
+until Pickering's brain-trust came up with one of their own, and that
+the fact that the commander-in-chief was making sack-time would be
+much better for morale than the spectacle of him running around in
+circles. He shaved carefully; a stubble of beard on his chin might
+betray the fact that he was worried. Then he dressed, put his monocle
+in his eye, and called the headquarters that had been set up in Sid
+Harrington's--now his--office. A girl at the switchboard appeared on
+his screen, and gave place to Paula Quinton, who had been up for the
+past two hours.
+
+"The _Northern Lights_ got in about three hours ago, general," she
+told him. "She had four of King Yoorkerk's infantry regiments
+aboard--the Seventh, Glorious-and-Terrible, the Fourth,
+Firm-in-Adversity, the Second, Strength-of-the-Throne, and the
+Twelfth, Forever-Admirable. They're the sorriest-looking rabble I
+ever saw, but Hideyoshi says they're the best Yoorkerk has, and they
+all have Terran-style rifles. General M'zangwe broke them into
+battalions, and put a battalion in with each of the Kragan regiments.
+I think they're more afraid of the Kragans than they are of the
+rebels."
+
+He nodded. That was probably the best way to employ them, within the
+existing situation. The trouble was, Them M'zangwe was incurably
+tactical-minded. Put those geeks of Yoorkerk's in with the Kragans and
+they'd be most useful in conquering Konkrook, but the trouble was
+that, after associating with Kragans, they might develop into
+reasonably good troops themselves, to the undesired improvement of
+King Yoorkerk's army. On the other hand maybe not. Keep them in
+Company service long enough, and they might want to forget about
+Yoorkerk and stay there.
+
+"How's the situation over in town?" he asked.
+
+"Well, it's slowing up, since we began pulling contragravity out," she
+told him, "but the geeks are breaking up rapidly.... Oh, there was
+something funny about that hassle, last evening, when the _Procyon_
+came in. Two contragravity vehicles, an aircar and an air-lorry, that
+went 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 the
+vehicles that answered that unidentified-aircraft alert returned, but
+there 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 were
+probably geeks from Konkrook. You know, that's how the von Schlichten
+family got out of Germany, in the Year Three--flew a bomber to Spain.
+The Konkrook war-criminals are getting out before the Army of
+Occupation 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 from
+Konkrook agree that resistance is getting weaker every hour.... And
+the supra-atmosphere observation-craft--they're beginning to call her
+the _Sky-Spy_--is up a hundred and fifty miles over Keegark. We have
+radar and vision screens and telemetered radiation and other detectors
+here, tuned to her. They're installing a similar set on the _Northern
+Lights_ at the shipyard. By the way, Air-Commodore Hargreaves wants to
+know if he can take a pair of 155-mm rifles from the Channel Battery
+and mount them on the _Lights_."
+
+"Yes, of course, he can have anything he wants, as long as it isn't
+urgently needed for the bomb project."
+
+"_Sky-Spy_ reports normal contragravity traffic between Keegark and
+the farming-villages around--aircars, lorries, a few scows--but
+nothing 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 pretty
+frustrated. They have Major Thornton, at the ammunition plant, doing
+experimental work on chemical-explosive charges to bring the
+subcritical masses together and hold them together till an explosion
+can be produced; they're using most of the skilled electrical and
+electronics people to work up a detonating device. That's why Kankad's
+people are doing most of the detection-device work. Hargreaves is
+fitting a lot of small craft-- combat-cars and civilian aircars--with
+radar sets, to use for patrolling."
+
+"That sounds good," von Schlichten said. "I'll be around and see how
+things are, after I've had some breakfast."
+
+He had breakfast at the main cafeteria, four floors down; there wasn't
+as much laughing and talking as usual, but the crowd there seemed in
+good spirits. He spent some time at headquarters, watching Keegark by
+TV and radar. So far, nothing had been done about direct
+reconnaissance over Keegark with radiation-detectors, but Hargreaves
+reported that a couple of privately owned aircars were being fitted
+for the job.
+
+He made a flying inspection trip around the island, and visited the
+farms south of the city, on the mainland, and, finally, made a sweep
+in the command-car over the city itself. Reconnaissance in person was
+an archaic and unprogressive procedure, and it was a good way to get
+generals killed, but one could see a lot of things that would be
+missed on TV. He let down several times in areas that had already been
+taken, and talked to company and platoon officers. For one thing, King
+Yoorkerk's flamboyantly named regiments weren't quite as bad as Paula
+had thought. She'd been spoiled by the Kragans in her appreciation of
+other native troops. They had good, standard-quality, Volund-made
+arms; they were brave and capable; and they had been just enough
+insulted by being integrated into Kragan regiments to try to make a
+good showing.
+
+By noon, resistance in the city was beginning to cave in. Surrender
+flags were appearing on one after another of the Konkrookan rebel
+strong-points, and at 1430, after he had returned to the Island, a
+delegation, headed by the Konkrookan equivalent of Lord Mayor and
+composed largely of prominent merchants, came across the channel under
+a flag of truce to surrender the city's Spear of State, with abject
+apologies for not having Gurgurk's head on the point of it. Gurgurk,
+they reported, had fled to Keegark by air the night before, which
+explained the incident of the unaccountable aircar and lorry. The
+Channel Battery stopped firing, and, with the exception of an
+occasional spatter of small-arms fire, the city fell silent.
+
+At 1600, von Schlichten visited the headquarters Pickering had set up
+in the office building at the power-plant. As he stepped off the lift
+on the third floor, a girl, running down the hall with her arms full
+of papers in folders, collided with him; the load of papers flew in
+all directions. He stooped to help her pick them up.
+
+"Oh, general! Isn't it wonderful?" she cried. "I just can't believe
+it!"
+
+"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 and
+gave them to her. "When?"
+
+"Just half an hour ago. And to think, those books were around here all
+the time, and.... Oh, I've got to run!" She disappeared into the lift.
+
+Inside the office, one of Pickering's engineers was sitting on the
+middle of his spinal column, a stenograph-phone in one hand and a book
+in the other. Once in a while, he would say something into the
+mouthpiece of the phone. Two other nuclear engineers had similar books
+spread out on a desk in front of them; they were making notes and
+looking up references in the _Nuclear Engineers' Handbook_, and making
+calculations with their sliderules. There was a huddle around the
+drafting-boards, where two more such books were in use.
+
+"Well, what's happened?" he demanded, catching Pickering by the arm as
+he 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 von
+Schlichten, and von Schlichten suddenly felt sicker than he had ever
+felt since, at the age of fourteen, he had gotten drunk for the first
+time. He had seen men crack up under intolerable strain before, but
+this was the first time he had seen a whole roomful of men blow their
+tops in the same manner.
+
+The book was a novel--a jumbo-size historical novel, of some seven or eight
+hundred pages. Its dust-jacket bore a slightly-more-than-bust-length
+picture of a young lady with crimson hair and green eyes and jade earrings
+and a plunging--not to say power-diving--neckline that left her affiliation
+with the class of Mammalia in no doubt whatever. In the background, a
+mushroom-topped smoke-column rose, and away from it something intended to
+be a four-motor propeller-driven bomber of the First Century was racing
+madly. The title, he saw, was _Dire Dawn_, and the author was one
+Hildegarde 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. Case
+specifications, tampers, charge design, detonating device, everything.
+Why, the end-papers even have diagrams, copies of the original
+Nagasaki-bomb drawings. Look."
+
+Von Schlichten looked. He had no more than the average intelligent
+layman's knowledge of nuclear physics--enough to recharge or repair a
+conversion-unit--but the drawings looked authentic enough. They seemed
+to 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 to
+him. "And this!" He opened where another slip of paper had been
+inserted. "Everything we want to know, practically."
+
+"I don't get this." He wasn't sick, anymore, just bewildered. "I read
+some reviews of this thing. All the reviewers panned hell out of
+it--'World War II Through a Bedroom Keyhole'; 'Henty in Black Lace
+Panties'--that sort of thing."
+
+"Yeh, yeh, sure," Pickering agreed. "But this Hernandez had illusions
+of being a great serious historical novelist, see. She won't try to
+write a book till she's put in years of research--actually, about six
+months' research by a herd of librarians and college-juniors and other
+such literary coolies--and she boasts that she never yet has been
+caught in an error of historical background detail.
+
+"Well, this opus is about the old Manhattan Project. The heroine is a
+sort of super-Mata-Hari, who is, alternately and sometimes
+simultaneously, in the pay of the Nazis, the Soviets, the Vatican,
+Chiang Kai-Shek, the Japanese Emperor, and the Jewish International
+Bankers, and she sleeps with everybody but Joe Stalin and Mao
+Tse-tung, and of course, she is in on every step of the A-bomb
+project. She even manages to stow away on the _Enola Gay_, with the
+help of a general she's spent fifty incandescent pages seducing.
+
+"In order to tool up for this production-job, La Hernandez did her
+researching just where Lourenço Gomes probably did his--University of
+Montevideo Library. She even had access to the photostats of the old
+U.S. data that General Lanningham brought to South America after the
+debacle in the United States in A.E. 114. Those end-papers are part of
+the Lanningham stuff. As far as we've been able to check
+mathematically, everything is strictly authentic and practical. We'll
+have to run a few more tests on the chemical-explosive charges--we
+don't have any data on the exact strength of the explosives they used
+then--and the tampers and detonating device will need to be tested a
+little. But in about half an hour, we ought to be able to start
+drawing plans for the case, and as soon as they're finished, we'll
+rush 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. "We
+will erect, on the ruins of Keegark, a hundred-foot statue of Señorita
+Hildegarde Hernandez.... How did you get onto this?"
+
+Pickering pointed to a young man with dull brick colored hair, who was
+punching out some kind of a problem on a small computing machine.
+
+"Piet van Reenen, over there, he has a girl-friend whose taste runs to
+this sort of literary bubble-gum. She told him it was all in a book
+she'd just read, and showed him. We descended in force on the bookshop
+and grabbed every copy in stock. We are now running a sort of
+gaseous-diffusion process, to separate the nuclear physics from the
+pornography. I must say, Hildegarde has her biological data very well
+in hand, too."
+
+"I'll bet she'd have fun writing a novel about these geeks," von
+Schlichten said. "Well, how soon do you think you can have a bomb
+ready 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 the
+most. 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 least
+half a dozen. And have some practice-bombs made up, out of concrete or
+anything, as long as they're the right weight and airfoil and have
+some way of releasing smoke. Get them done as soon as you have your
+case designed. We want to be able to make a couple of practice drops."
+
+There was no use, he thought, of raising hopes which might prove
+premature. He told Paula Quinton, of course, and Themistocles
+M'zangwe, and, by telecast on sealed beam, King Kankad and
+Air-Commodore Hargreaves. Beyond that, there was nothing to do but
+wait, and hope that Hargreaves could keep Orgzild's bombers away from
+Gongonk Island and Kankad's Town and that Hildegarde Hernandez had
+been playing fair with her public. He visited the city, where a few
+pockets of diehard resistance were being liquidated, and where
+everybody who had not been too deeply and publicly involved in the
+_znidd suddabit_ conspiracy was now coming forward and claiming to
+have been a lifelong friend of the Terrans and the Company. Von
+Schlichten returned to Gongonk Island, debating with himself whether
+to declare a general amnesty or to set up a dozen guillotines in the
+city and run them around the clock for a week. There were cogent
+arguments for and against either procedure.
+
+By 2100, the last organized resistance had been wiped out, and curfew
+had been imposed, and peace of a sort restored. There was still the
+threat from Keegark, but it was looking less ominous now than it had
+the evening before. Von Schlichten and Paula were having dinner in the
+Broadway Room, confident that there was nothing left to do that they
+could do anything about, when the extension phone that had been
+plugged in at their table rang.
+
+"Colonel Quinton here," Paula identified herself into it, and listened
+for a moment. "There has? When?... Well, where did it come from?... I
+see. And the direction?... Anything else?"
+
+Apparently there was nothing else. She hung up, and turned to von
+Schlichten.
+
+"The _Sky-Spy_ just detected a ship lifting out from Keegark, presumed
+one of the Boer-class freighters, either the _Jan Smuts_ or the _Oom
+Paul Kruger_. It was first picked up on contragravity at about a
+hundred feet, rising vertically from near the Palace. The supposition
+is the geeks had her camouflaged since the time Commander Prinsloo
+first bombarded Keegark with the _Aldebaran_. That was about twenty
+minutes 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 draw
+our ships north after her, and leave the approach to Konkrook or
+Kankad'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 can
+slip down the Konk Valley either undetected or mistaken for one of our
+ships from North Uller."
+
+He picked up the phone. "Get me through on telecast to Air-Commodore
+Hargreaves, aboard the _Procyon_," he said. "I'll take it in the
+office; I'll be up directly." He rose. "Finish your dinner, and have
+the rest of mine sent up," he told Paula.
+
+Leaving the elevator, he rushed into the big headquarters room just as
+contact was established with the _Procyon_, on station over the
+northwestern 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, had
+just arrived at Kankad's. He had the _Aldebaran_ sent north along the
+crest of the mountain-range between the Hoork and Konk river-valleys,
+where she could cover both with her own radar and other
+detection-devices and exchange information with the _Sky-Spy_, and the
+_Gaucho_ sent in what looked like the right course to intercept the
+Boer-class freighter from Keegark. The _Northern Lights_, also with
+screens 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 finished
+calling Skilk, pushing a cocktail-wagon on which their interrupted
+dinners had been placed. They finished eating, and drank coffee, and
+smoked. Most of the rest of his staff who were not busy on the
+bomb-project or at the shipyards or with the occupation of Konkrook
+drifted in; they all sat and stared from one to another of the
+screens, which told, in radar-patterns and direct vision and
+telescopic vision and heat and radiation detection, the story of what
+was going on to the northeast of them.
+
+Keegark was dark, on the vision-screen; evidently King Orgzild had invented
+the blackout, too. Not that it did him any good; the radar-screen showed
+the city clearly, and it was just as clear on the radiation and
+heat-screens. The Keegarkan ship was completely blacked out, but the
+radiations from her engines and the distinctive radiation-pattern of her
+contragravity-field showed clearly, and there was a speck that marked her
+position on the radar-screen. The same position was marked with a pin-point
+of light on the vision-screen--some device on the _Sky-Spy_, synchronized
+with the detectors, kept it focused there. The Company ships and
+contragravity vehicles all were carrying topside lights, visible only from
+above, which flashed alternate red and blue to identify them.
+
+Time crawled slowly around the clock-face on the wall, the
+sixty-five-second minutes of Uller dragging like hours. The spots that
+marked the enemy ship and her hunters crawled, too; seen from the
+hundred-and-fifty-mile altitude of the _Sky-Spy_, even the
+six-hundred-mile speed of the _Gaucho_ was barely visible. They drank
+coffee till the stuff revolted them; they smoked until their throats
+and mouths were dry, they watched the screens until they thought that
+they would see them in their dreams forever. Then the _Gaucho_
+reported radar-contact with the Keegarkan ship, which had begun to
+turn in a hairpin-shaped course and was coming south down the Konk
+Valley.
+
+After that, the _Gaucho_ began reporting directly, and her topside
+identification-light went out.
+
+"... doused our lights; we're down in the valley, altitude about a
+thousand 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 voice
+repeated, several times, the wavelength, and somebody got an auxiliary
+screen tuned in. There was nothing visible on it but the darkness of
+the valley, the star-jeweled sky, and the loom of the East Konk
+Mountains. "We still can't see her, but we ought to, any moment; radar
+shows her well above the mountains. Ah, there she is; she just
+obscured Beta Hydrae V; she's moving toward that big constellation to
+the east of it, the one they call Finnegan's Goat. Now she'll be right
+in the center of the screen; we're going straight for her. We're going
+to try to slow her down till the _Aldebaran_ can get here...."
+
+The enemy ship was vaguely visible, now, becoming clearer in the
+starlight. 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 since
+the uprising had started. For all anybody knew, she could have been
+destroyed in the fighting before the Bwork Residency fell.
+
+"All right, we have her spotted; we're going to open up on her," the
+voice from the _Gaucho_ announced. "She has two 90's to our one; we'll
+try to disable them, first." The vision-screen lit with the indirect
+glare of the gun-flash, and the image in it jiggled violently as the
+ship shook to the recoil, then steadied again, with the enemy ship
+visible in the middle of it, growing larger and larger as the _Gaucho_
+rushed toward her. The gun fired again and again, flooding the screen
+with momentary yellow light and disturbing the image as the recoil
+shook the gun-cutter. The enemy ship began firing in reply, the shots
+were all wide misses. Apparently the geek guncrew didn't know how to
+synchronize the radar sights, and were ignorant of the correct setting
+for the proximity-fuses. The _Gaucho_'s searchlights came on, bathing
+her quarry in light. It was the _Jan Smuts_; the name and the
+figurehead-bust of the old soldier-philosopher were plainly visible.
+Her forward gun had been knocked out, and she was trying to swing
+about 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 and
+four and four, at half-second intervals. The first four hit the
+_Smuts_ amidships and low, exploding with a flare that grew before it
+could die away as the second four landed. Nobody ever saw the third
+and fourth four land. The _Jan Smuts_ vanished in a blaze of light
+that blinded everybody in the room; when they could see again, after
+some thirty seconds, the screen was dark.
+
+In the direct-vision screen from the _Sky-Spy_, the whole countryside
+of the Konk Valley, five hundred miles north of Konkrook, was lighted.
+The heat and radiation detectors were going insane. And in the
+shifting confusion on the radar-screen, there was no trace either of
+the _Jan Smuts_ or the _Gaucho_.
+
+"Well, the geeks did have an A-bomb," Themistocles M'zangwe said, at
+length. "I'd been trying to kid myself that we were just preparing
+against 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 a
+junior-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 that
+cutter. Authority Carlos von Schlichten, acting Governor-General." He
+picked up a phone. "Get me Commander Prinsloo, on _Aldebaran_...."
+
+He ordered Prinsloo to launch airboats and make a search; cautioned
+him 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. While
+that was going on, the _Sky-Spy_ reported another ship coming over her
+horizon to the east, from the direction of Bwork. That would be the
+_Oom Paul Kruger_. Hargreaves had already learned of the advent of the
+second freighter. He was unwilling to take the _Procyon_ off her
+station until the _Aldebaran_ returned from the Konk Valley. In this,
+von Schlichten concurred.
+
+Somebody suggested that a drink would be in order. They had just
+watched the all-but-certain death of three Terran officers, fifteen
+Terran airmen, and ten Kragans, but they had all been living in too
+close companionship with death in the past three days--or was it three
+centuries--to be too deeply affected. And they had also watched, at
+least for a day or so, the removal of the threat that had hung over
+their heads. And they had seen proof that they had a defense against
+King Orgzild's bombs.
+
+They were still mixing cocktails when Pickering phoned in.
+
+"Some good news, general, from Operation 'Hildegarde.' We ought to
+have at least one bomb ready to drop by 1500 tomorrow, four or five
+more by next midnight," he said. "We don't need to have cases cast. We
+got our dimensions decided, and we find that there are a lot of big
+empty 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 can
+between now and 2400 Sunday." He thought for a moment. "Don't waste
+time on those practice bombs I mentioned. We'll make a practice drop
+with 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 a
+belt of calm air just below the seesawing currents from the warming
+Antarctic and the cooling deserts of the Arctic. There was the
+_Procyon_, from the bridge of which von Schlichten watched the
+movements of the other ships and airboats and the distant horizon. The
+_Aldebaran_ was ten miles off, to the west, her metal sheathing
+glinting in the red light of the evening sun. There was the _Northern
+Star_, down from Skilk, a smaller and more distant twinkle of
+reflected light to the north of _Aldebaran_. The _Northern Lights_ was
+off to the east, and between her and _Procyon_ was a fifth ship;
+turning the arm-mounted binoculars around, he could just make out, on
+her bow, the figurehead bust of a man in an ancient tophat and a
+fringe of chin-beard. She was the _Oom Paul Kruger_, captured by the
+_Procyon_ after a chase across the mountains northeast of Keegark the
+day before. And, remote from the other ships, to the south, a tiny
+speck of blue-gray, almost invisible against the sky, and a smaller
+twinkle of reflected sunlight--a garbage-scow, unflatteringly but
+somewhat aptly rechristened _Hildegarde Hernandez_, which had been
+altered as a bomb-carrier, and the gun-cutter _Elmoran_. With the
+glasses, he could see a bulky cylinder being handled off the scow and
+loaded onto the improvised bomb-catapult on the _Elmoran_'s stern.
+Shortly thereafter, the gun-cutter broke loose from the tender and
+began to approach the fleet.
+
+"General, I must protest against your doing this," Air-Commodore
+Hargreaves said. "There's simply no sense in it. That bomb can be
+dropped without your personal supervision aboard, sir, and you're
+endangering yourself unnecessarily. That infernal machine hasn't been
+tested or anything; it might even let go on the catapult when you try
+to 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 up
+with that contraption?" Buhrmann supported him. "My God, I thought Don
+Quixote was a Spaniard, instead of a German!"
+
+"Argentino," von Schlichten corrected. "And don't try to sell me that
+Irreplaceable Man line, either. Them M'zangwe can replace me, Hid
+O'Leary can replace him, Barney Mordkovitz can replace him, and so on
+down to where you make a second lieutenant out of some sergeant. We've
+been all over this last evening. Admitted we can't take time for a
+long string of test-shots, and admitted we have to use an untested
+weapon; I'm not sending men out under those circumstances and staying
+here on this ship and watch them blow themselves up. If that bomb's
+our only hope, it's got to be dropped right, and I'm not going to take
+a chance on having it dropped by a crew who think they've been sent
+out on a suicide mission. What happened to the _Gaucho_ when she blew
+the _Smuts_ up is too fresh in everybody's mind. But if I, who ordered
+the mission, accompany it, they'll know I have some confidence that
+they'll come back alive."
+
+"Well I'm coming along, too, general," Kent Pickering spoke up. "I
+made the damned thing, and I ought to be along when it's dropped, on
+the principle that a restaurant-proprietor ought to be seen eating his
+own 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 good
+chance that the geeks don't know we have a bomb of our own. They may
+believe that it was something invented on Niflheim for mining
+purposes, and that we haven't realized its military application.
+There's more than a good chance that the loss of the _Jan Smuts_ has
+temporarily demoralized them. Personally, I believe that both King
+Orgzild and Prince Gorkrink were aboard her when she blew up. That's
+something we'll never know, positively, of course. That ship and
+everything and everybody in her were simply vaporized, and the
+particles are registering on our geigers now. But I'm as sure as I am
+of anything about these geeks that one or both of them accompanied
+her."
+
+"Paula knows what she's talking about," King Kankad jabbered in the
+Takkad Sea language which they all understood. "Just like Von saying
+that he has to go on our cutter, to encourage the crew. They always
+insist that their kings and generals go into battle, particularly if
+something important is to be done. They think the gods get angry if
+they don't."
+
+"And we have to hit them now," von Schlichten said. "They still have a
+couple of bombs left. We haven't been able to locate them with
+detectors, 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't
+take a chance that some fanatic may load one into an aircar and make
+a kamikaze-raid on Gongonk Island."
+
+The _Elmoran_ ran alongside, with her Masai-warrior figurehead and the
+black 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 to
+connect the ship with the cutter. Von Schlichten and Kent Pickering
+went down the ladder from the bridge, the others accompanying them. As
+he 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 believe
+there's any danger, but I'm not having you run any unnecessary
+risks...."
+
+"Von, I don't know much about the way Terrans think, except about
+fighting and about making things," Kankad told him. "And I don't know
+anything at all about the kind of Terrans who have young. But I
+believe 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 will
+ever 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 and
+checked the catapult and the bomb-sight, and then went up on the
+bridge.
+
+"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 five
+thousand for a target-check, turning when we're half-way back to the
+mountains, and coming back for our bombing-run at fifteen thousand. Is
+that all right, sir?"
+
+Von Schlichten nodded. "You're the skipper, lieutenant. You'd better
+make sure, though, that as soon as the bomb-off signal is flashed,
+your engineer hits his auxiliary rocket-propulsion button. We want to
+be about fifteen miles from where that thing goes off."
+
+The lieutenant (j.g.) muttered something that sounded unmilitarily
+like, "You ain't foolin', brother!"
+
+"No, I'm not," von Schlichten agreed. "I saw the _Jan Smuts_ on the
+TV-screen."
+
+The _Elmoran_ pointed her bow, and the long blade of the figurehead
+warrior'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 a
+color-splashed triangle between the river and the bay and the hills on
+the landward side, and then it took shape, cross-ruled with streets
+and granulated with buildings. As they came in, von Schlichten, who
+had approached it from the air many times before, could distinguish
+the landmarks--the site of King Orgzild's nitroglycerin plant, now a
+crater surrounded by a quarter-mile radius of ruins; the Residency,
+another crater since Rodolfo MacKinnon had blown it up under him; the
+smashed _Christiaan De Wett_ at the Company docks; King Orgzild's
+Palace, fire-stained and with a hole blown in one corner by the
+_Aldebaran_'s bombs.... Then they were past the city and over open
+country.
+
+"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 anything
+significant when we flew reconnaissance with the radiation detectors."
+
+"No, about all that was picked up was the main power-plant, and the
+radiation-escape from there was normal," Pickering agreed. "The bombs
+themselves wouldn't be detectable, except to the extent that, say, a
+nuclear-conversion engine for an airboat would be. They probably have
+them underground, somewhere, well shielded."
+
+"Those prisoners Kankad's commandos dragged in only knew that they
+were in the city somewhere," von Schlichten considered. "How about
+midway 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 thousand
+feet. Morrison passed the word to the bombardier. The city, with the
+sea beyond it now, came rushing at them, and von Schlichten, standing
+at the front of the bridge, discovered that he had his arm around
+Paula's waist and was holding her a little more closely than was
+military. 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 of
+engineering, and the stuff they got out of that big-economy-size
+shilling-shocker all checked mathematically...."
+
+The red light on the bridge flashed, and the intercom shouted, "_Bomb
+off!_" He forced Paula down on the bridge deck and crouched beside
+her.
+
+"Cover your eyes," he warned. "You remember what the flash was like in
+the screen when the _Jan Smuts_ blew up. And we didn't get the worst
+of it; the pickup on the _Gaucho_ was knocked out too soon."
+
+He kept on lecturing her about gamma-rays and ultra-violet rays and
+X-rays and cosmic rays, trying to keep making some sort of intelligent
+sounds while they clung together and waited, and, with the other half
+of his mind, trying not to think of everything that could go wrong
+with that jerry-built improvisation they had just dumped onto Keegark.
+If it didn't blow, and the geeks found it, they'd know that another
+one 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 palpable
+sound, and a sensation of heat that penetrated even the airtight
+superstructure 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 remaining
+nuclear armament. There were shattering sounds of breaking glass, and
+heavy thumps that told of structural damage to the cutter, and hoarse
+shouts, and lurid cursing as Morrison and his airmen struggled with
+the controls. The cutter began losing altitude, but she was back on a
+reasonably even keel. Von Schlichten rose, helping Paula to her feet,
+and found that they had been kissing one another passionately. They
+were still in each other's arms when the pitching and rolling of the
+cutter 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_. And
+here, you'll want this, I suppose." He held out a glass disc. "I
+never expected to see it, but at that it took three A-bombs to blow
+you 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 kissing
+a lady?"
+
+He looked around. They were at about eight hundred to a thousand feet
+above the water, with a stiff following wind away from the explosion
+area. The 90-mm gun, forward, must have been knocked loose and carried
+away; it was gone, and so was the TV-pickup and the radar. Something,
+probably the gun, had slammed against the front of the bridge--the
+metal skeleton was bent in, and the armor-glass had been knocked out.
+The cutter was vibrating properly, so the contragravity-field had not
+been disturbed, and her jets were firing.
+
+"It was the second and third bombs that did the damage, sir," Morrison
+was saying. "We'd have gone through the effects of our own bomb with
+nothing more than a bad shaking--of course, on contragravity, we're
+weightless relative to the air-mass, but she was built to stand the
+winds in the high latitudes. But the two geek bombs caught us off
+balance...."
+
+"You don't need to apologize, lieutenant. You and your crew behaved
+splendidly, lieutenant-commander, best traditions, and all that sort
+of thing. It was a pleasure, commander, hope to be aboard with you
+again, captain."
+
+They found Kent Pickering at the rear of the bridge, and joined him
+looking astern. Even von Schlichten, who had seen H-bombs and
+Bethe-cycle bombs, was impressed. Keegark was completely obliterated
+under an outward-rolling cloud of smoke and dust that spread out for
+five miles at the bottom of the towering column.
+
+There had been a hundred and fifty thousand people in that city, even
+if their faces were the faces of lizards and they had four arms and
+quartz-speckled skins. What fraction of them were now alive, he could
+not guess. He had to remind himself that they were the people who had
+burned Eric Blount and Hendrik Lemoyne alive; that two of the three
+bombs that had contributed to that column of boiling smoke had been
+made in Keegark, by Keegarkans, and that, with a few causal factors
+altered, he was seeing what would have happened to Konkrook. Perhaps
+every Terran felt a superstitious dread of nuclear energy turned to
+the purposes of war; small wonder, after what they had done on their
+own world.
+
+For one thing, he thought grimly, the next geek who picks up the idea
+of soaking a Terran in thermoconcentrate and setting fire to him will
+drop it again like a hot potato. And the next geek potentate who tries
+to organize an anti-Terran conspiracy, or the next crazy
+caravan-driver who preached _znidd suddabit_, will be lynched on the
+spot. 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 after
+that. After you drop the first bomb, there is no turning back, any
+more than there had been after Hiroshima, four-hundred-and-fifty-odd
+years ago. Why, he had even been considering just where, against the
+mountains back of Bwork, he would drop a demonstration bomb as a
+prelude to a surrender demand.
+
+You either went on to the inevitable catastrophe, or you realized, in
+time, that nuclear armament and nationalism cannot exist together on
+the same planet, and it is easier to banish a habit of thought than a
+piece of knowledge. Uller was not ready for membership in the Terran
+Federation; then its people must bow to the Terran Pax. The Kragans
+would help--as proconsuls, administrators, now, instead of
+mercenaries. And there must be manned orbital stations, and the
+Residencies must be moved outside the cities, away from possible
+blast-areas. And Sid Harrington's idea of encouraging the natives to
+own their own contragravity-ships must be shelved, for a long time to
+come. Maybe, in a century or so....
+
+Kankad had a good idea, at that, a most meritorious idea. He was sold
+on it, already, and he doubted if it would take much salesmanship with
+Paula, either. Already, she was clinging to his arm with obvious
+possessiveness. Maybe their grandchildren, and the Kankad of that
+time, would see Uller a civilized member of the Federation....
+
+They paused, as the gun-cutter nuzzled up to the _Procyon_ and the
+canvas-entubed gangway was run out and made fast, looking back at the
+fearful thing that had sprouted from where Keegark had been.
+
+"You know," Paula was saying, echoing his earlier thought, "but for
+that female pornographer, that would have been Konkrook."
+
+He nodded. "Yes. I hope you won't mind, but there will always be a
+place in my heart for Hildegarde."
+
+Then they turned their backs upon the abomination of Keegark's
+desolation and went up the gangway together, looking very little like
+a 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_
+
+EMPIRE
+FEDERATION
+FIRST CYCLE
+FOUR-DAY PLANET/LONE STAR PLANET
+FUZZY PAPERS
+FUZZY SAPIENS
+LITTLE FUZZY
+LORD KALVAN OF OTHERWHEN
+PARATIME!
+SPACE VIKING
+ULLER UPRISING
+THE WORLDS OF H. BEAM PIPER
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ULLER UPRISING
+
+"ZNIDD SUDDABIT!"
+
+
+So the Ulleran challenge begins, with the rantings of a prophet and a
+seemingly incidental street riot. Only when a dose of poison lands in
+the governor-general's whiskey does it become clear that the "geeks"
+have had it up to their double-lidded eyeballs with the imperialist
+Terran Federation's Chartered Uller Company. Then, overnight, war is
+everywhere.
+
+How it will end is in the (merely) two Terran hands of the new
+governor-general, a man shrewd enough to know that "it is easier to
+banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." The problem is,
+the particular piece of knowledge he needs hasn't been used in 450
+years....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Uller Uprising, by
+Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ULLER UPRISING ***
+
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Uller Uprising, by Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
+    </title>
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+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Uller Uprising, by
+Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Uller Uprising
+
+Author: Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
+
+Release Date: January 21, 2007 [EBook #19474]
+[Original Release Date: October 5, 2006]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ULLER UPRISING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p>
+<p>Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p>
+<p> The Table of Contents is not a part of the original book.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="center"><img class="img1" src="images/image_01.jpg" alt="Front page" width="400" height="603" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2>H. BEAM PIPER</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h1>ULLER<br />
+UPRISING</h1>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image_06.jpg" alt="Seal" width="50" height="59" /></div>
+
+<h3>ACE SCIENCE FICTION BOOKS</h3>
+
+<h3>NEW YORK</h3>
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<p class="center f1">This Ace Science Fiction Book contains the complete
+text of the original hardcover edition.
+It has been completely reset in a typeface
+designed for easy reading, and was printed
+from new film.
+</p>
+<p class="center f1">
+PRINTING HISTORY<br />
+Twayne edition/ 1952<br />
+Ace edition/ June 1983<br />
+
+</p>
+<p class="center f1">
+Copyright &copy; 1952 by Twayne Publishers, Inc.<br />
+Copyright &copy; renewed 1983 by Charter Communications, Inc.<br />
+Introduction &copy; 1952, 1983 by Dr. John D. Clark<br />
+New Introduction &copy; 1983 by John F. Carr<br />
+Cover art by Gino D'Achille<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table summary="Contents">
+  <tr>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tocpg f1">PAGE</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td><a href="#Introduction_to">Introduction by John F. Carr</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_v">v</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td><a href="#Introduction">Introduction by Dr. John D. Clark
+</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_xi">xi</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td><a href="#PROLOGUE">PROLOGUE--On Satan's Footstool
+
+</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">I.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td><a href="#I">Commander-in-Chief Front and Center</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">II.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td><a href="#II">Rakkeed, Stalin, and the Rev. Keeluk</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">III.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td><a href="#III">Four-and-Twenty Geek Heads</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_36">36</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">IV.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td><a href="#IV">If You Read It in Stanley-Browne</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">V.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td><a href="#V">You Can Depend on It It's Wrong</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">VI.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td><a href="#VI">The Bad News Came After the Coffee</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">VII.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td><a href="#VII">Bismillah! How Dumb Can We Get?</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">VIII.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td><a href="#VIII">Authority of Governor-General von Schlichten</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">IX.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td><a href="#IX">Don't Push Them Anywhere Put Them Back in the Bottle</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_102">102</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">X.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td><a href="#X">The Geek Luftwaffe and the Kragan Airlift</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">XI.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td><a href="#XI">Of Princedoms Which Have Been Won by Conquest</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">XII.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td><a href="#XII">The Shadow of Niflheim</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">XIII.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td><a href="#XIII">A Bag of Tricks We Don't Have</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_149">149</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">XIV.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td><a href="#XIV">The Reviewers Panned Hell Out of It</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_162">162</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">XV.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td><a href="#XV">A Place in my Heart for Hildegarde</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_178">178</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="Introduction_to" id="Introduction_to"></a>Introduction to<br />
+
+
+<i>ULLER UPRISING</i></h2>
+
+<h3>by John F. Carr</h3>
+<p>With the publication of this novel, <i>Uller Uprising</i>, all of H. Beam
+Piper's previously published science fiction is now available in Ace
+editions. <i>Uller Uprising</i> was first published in 1952 in a Twayne
+Science Fiction Triplet&mdash;a hardbound collection of three thematically
+connected novels. (The other two were Judith Merril's <i>Daughters of
+Earth</i> and Fletcher Pratt's <i>The Long View</i>.) A year later it appeared
+in the February and March issues of <i>Space Science Fiction</i>, edited by
+Lester Del Rey.</p>
+
+<p>The magazine version, which was abridged by about a third, was
+believed by many bibliographers to be the only version&mdash;and as a
+novella it was too short for book publication. The Twayne version had
+a small print run and is so scarce that few people have seen it. Those
+bibliographers who knew of its existence assumed that both versions of
+<i>Uller</i> were the same. It was through a telephone conversation with
+Charles N. Brown, publisher of <i>Locus</i> and correspondent with Piper,
+that I learned about the Twayne edition and its greater length. Brown
+allowed me to photocopy his original, for which we owe him a debt of
+thanks; because the Twayne version is not only novel length, but far
+better than the shorter one that appeared in <i>Space Science Fiction</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Probably the most surprising and interesting thing about the Twayne
+edition is the essay that forms the introduction to that volume, and
+is reprinted here. The essay is by Dr. John D. Clark, an eminent
+scientist of the forties and fifties and one of the discoverers of
+sulfa, the first "miracle drug." It describes in great detail the
+planetary system of the star Beta Hydri, and gives the names of those
+planets: Uller and Niflheim. A publisher's note states that Clark's
+essay was written first, and given to the contributors as background
+material for a novel they would then write.</p>
+
+<p>The fans of H. Beam Piper seem to owe a great debt to Dr. Clark.
+<i>Uller Uprising</i> became the foundation of Piper's monumental
+Terro-Human Future History; the first story where we encounter the
+Terran Federation. In it we learn about Odin, the planet that will one
+day be the capital of the First Galactic Empire; and humble Niflheim,
+which in more decadent times will become a common expletive, a word
+meaning hell. This is also where Piper introduced and explained the
+Atomic Era dating system (A.E.). <i>Uller Uprising</i> is set in the early
+years of the Terran Federation's expansion and exploration, an epoch
+of great vitality. In "The Edge of the Knife" Piper compares this time
+of discovery to the Spanish conquest of the Americas. This feeling of
+vigor and unlimited possibilities runs through all the early
+Federation stories: <i>Uller Uprising</i>, "Omnilingual," "Naudsonce,"
+"When in the Course&mdash;," and, to a lesser degree, in the late
+Federation novels, <i>Little Fuzzy</i>, <i>Fuzzy Sapiens</i>, and <i>Fuzzies and
+Other People</i>. (See <i>Federation</i> by H. Beam Piper for a good overview
+of this period.)</p>
+
+<p>In these stories we see Terro-Humans at their best and at their worst:
+Individual heroism and bravery in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span> the face of grave danger in <i>Uller
+Uprising</i>; Federation law and justice in <i>Little Fuzzy</i> and its
+sequels; and, in "Omnilingual" and "Naudsonce," the spirit of science
+and rational inquiry. Yet we also see colonial exploitation and
+subjugation in <i>Uller Uprising</i> and "Oomphel in the Sky," the greed
+and corruption of Chartered land companies in <i>Little Fuzzy</i>, and
+political corruption in <i>Four-Day Planet</i>. These stories are about a
+living Terro-Human culture, not a utopia.</p>
+
+<p>It was Piper's attention to historical realism and his use of actual
+historical models that have helped his work to pass the test of time
+and have led to his becoming the favorite of a new generation of
+readers more than twenty-five years after his death.</p>
+
+<p><i>Uller Uprising</i> is the story of a confrontation between a human
+overlord and alien servants, with an ironic twist at the end. Like
+most of Piper's best work, <i>Uller Uprising</i> is modeled after an actual
+event in human history; in this case the Sepoy Mutiny (a Bengal
+uprising in British-held India brought about when rumors were spread
+to native soldiers that cartridges being issued by the British were
+coated with animal fat. The rebellion quickly spread throughout India
+and led to the massacre of the British Colony at Cawnpore.). Piper's
+novel is not a mere retelling of the Indian Mutiny, but rather an
+analysis of an historical event applied to a similar situation in the
+far future.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Like many philosophers and social theorists before him, Piper
+attempted to chart the progress of human-kind; unlike most, however,
+he did not envision or try to create a system of ethics that would end
+all of humanity's problems. The best he could offer was his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span> model of
+the self-reliant man: The man who "actually knows what has to be done
+and how to do it, and he's going to go right ahead and do it, without
+holding a dozen conferences and round-table discussions and giving
+everybody a fair and equal chance to foul things up for him."</p>
+
+<p>Piper brought his own ideas and judgments about society and history
+into all of his work, but they appear most clearly in his Terro-Human
+Future History. While not everyone will agree with Piper's theories
+they give his work a bite that most popular fiction lacks. One cannot
+read Piper complacently. And one can often find a wry insight
+sandwiched in between the blood and thunder.</p>
+
+<p>Other future histories may span more centuries or better illuminate
+the highlights of several decades, but until a rival is created with
+more historical depth and attention to detail, H. Beam Piper's
+Terro-Human Future History will stand as the Bayeux Tapestry of
+science fiction histories.</p>
+
+<p>In many ways&mdash;certainly during his lifetime&mdash;Piper was the most
+underrated of the John W. Campbell's "Astounding" writers. He was
+probably also the most Campbellian; his <i>self-reliant man</i> is almost a
+mirror image of Campbell's "Citizen."</p>
+
+<p>Piper died a bitter man, a failure in his own mind; shortly before his
+death he believed he could no longer earn a living as a writer without
+charity from his friends or the state.</p>
+
+<p>Now he's the cornerstone of Ace Books. Had he lived long enough to
+finish another half dozen books, he would have been among the sf
+greats of the sixties....</p>
+
+<p>But maybe he does know, after all. Jerry Pournelle,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span> who was very much
+influenced by Piper and in many ways considers himself Beam's
+spiritual descendant&mdash;and incidently was John W. Campbell's last major
+<i>discovery</i>&mdash;has said that sometimes, when he's gotten down a
+particularly good line, he can hear the "old man" chuckle and whisper,
+<i>atta boy</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="Introduction" id="Introduction"></a>Introduction</h2>
+
+<h2>Dr. John D. Clark</h2>
+<h3>THE SILICONE WORLD</h3>
+<h3>1. THE STAR AND ITS MOST IMPORTANT PLANET</h3>
+<p>The planet is named Uller (it seems that when interstellar travel was
+developed, the names of Greek Gods had been used up, so those of Norse
+gods were used). It is the second planet of the star Beta Hydri, right
+angle 0:23, declension -77:32, G-0 (solar) type star, of approximately
+the same size as Sol; distance from Earth, 21 light years.</p>
+
+<p>Uller revolves around it in a nearly circular orbit, at a distance of
+100,000,000 miles, making it a little colder than Earth. A year is of
+the approximate length of that on Earth. A day lasts 26 hours.</p>
+
+<p>The axis of Uller is in the same plane as the orbit, so that at a
+certain time of the year the north pole is pointed directly at the
+sun, while at the opposite end of the orbit it points directly away.
+The result is highly exaggerated seasons. At the poles the temperature
+runs from 120&deg;C to a low of -80&deg;C. At the equator it remains not far
+from 10&deg;C all year round. Strong winds blow during the summer and
+winter, from the hot to the cold pole; few winds during the spring and
+fall.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span> The appearance of the poles varies during the year from baked
+deserts to glaciers covered with solid CO<sub>2</sub>. Free water exists in
+the equatorial regions all year round.</p>
+
+
+<h3>2. SOLAR MOVEMENT AS SEEN FROM ULLER</h3>
+<p>As seen from the north pole&mdash;no sun is visible on Jan. 1. On April 1,
+it bisects the horizon all day, swinging completely around. April 1 to
+July 1, it continues swinging around, gradually rising in the sky, the
+spiral converging to its center at the zenith, which it reaches July
+1. From July 1 to October 1 the spiral starts again, spreading out
+from the center until on October 1 it bisects the horizon again. On
+October 1 night arrives to stay until April 1.</p>
+
+<p>At the equator, the sun is visible bisecting the southern horizon for
+all 26 hours of the day on January 1. From January 1 to April 1, the
+sun starts to dip below the horizon at night, to rise higher above it
+during the day. During all this time it rises and sets at the same
+hours, but rises in the southeast and sets in the southwest. At noon
+it is higher each day in the southern sky until April 1, when it rises
+due east, passes through the zenith and sets due west. From April 1 to
+July 1, its noon position drops down to the north, until on July 1, it
+is visible all day, bisected by the northern horizon.</p>
+
+
+<h3>3. CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY OF ULLER</h3>
+<p>Calcium and chlorine are rarer than on earth, sodium is somewhat
+commoner. As a result of the shortage of calcium there is a higher
+ration of silicates to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span> carbonates than exists on earth. The water is
+slightly alkaline and resembles a very dilute solution of sodium
+silicate (water glass). It would have a pH of 8.5 and tastes slightly
+soapy. Also, when it dries out it leaves a sticky, and then a glassy,
+crackly film. Rocks look fairly earthlike, but the absence or scarcity
+of anything like limestone is noticeable. Practically all the
+sedimentary rocks are of the sandstone type.</p>
+
+<p>All rivers are seasonal, running from the polar regions to the central
+seas in the spring only, or until the polar cap is completely dried
+out.</p>
+
+
+<h3>4. ANIMAL LIFE</h3>
+<p>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 tendency
+for the microscopic organisms to develop silicate exoskeletons, like
+diatoms. The present invertebrate animal life of the planet is of this
+type and is confined to the equatorial seas. They run from amoeba-like
+objects to things like crayfish, with silicate skeletons. Later, some
+species of them started taking silicone into their soft tissues, and
+eventually their carbon-chain compounds were converted to silicone
+type chains, from</p>
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image_02.jpg" alt="Table_01" width="600" height="107" /></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+<p>with organic radicals on the side links. These organisms were a
+transitional 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 be
+seen in the backwaters of the central seas.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A further development occurred when the silicone chain animals began
+to get short-chain silicones into their circulatory systems, held in
+solution by OH or NH<sub>2</sub> groups on the ends and branches of the
+chains. The proportion of these compounds gradually increased until
+the water was a minor and then a missing constituent. The larger
+mobile species were, then, practically anhydrous. Their blood consists
+of short-chain silicones, with quartz reinforcing for the soft parts
+and their armor, teeth, etc., of pure amorphous quartz (opal). Most of
+these parts are of the milky variety, variously tinted with metallic
+impurities, as are the varieties of sapphires.</p>
+
+<p>These pure silicone animals, due to their practical indestructibility,
+annihilated all but the smaller of the carbon animals, and drove the
+compromise types into odd corners as relics. They developed into a
+fish-like animal with a very large swim-bladder to compensate for the
+rather higher density of the silicone tissues, and from these fish the
+land animals developed. Due to their high density and resulting high
+weight, 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 the
+silicone tissue. One merges into the other.</p>
+
+<p>The dominant pure silicone animals only could become mobile and
+venture far from the temperate equatorial regions of Uller, since they
+neither froze nor stiffened with cold, nor became incapacitated by
+heat. Note that all animal life is cold-blooded, with a negligible
+difference between body and ambient temperatures. Since the animals
+are silicones, they don't get sluggish like cold snakes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[xv]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3>5. PLANT LIFE</h3>
+<p>The plants are of the carbon-metabolism, silicate-shell type, like the
+primitive animals. They spread out from the equator as far as they
+could go before the baking polar summers killed them. They have normal
+seasonal growth in the temperate zones and remain dormant and frozen
+in the winter. At the poles there is no vegetation, not because of the
+cold winter, but because of the hot summer. The winter winds
+frequently blow over dead trees and roll them as far as the equatorial
+seas. Other dead vegetation, because of the highly silicious water,
+always gets petrified unless it is eaten first. What with the
+quartz-speckled hides of the living vegetation and the solid quartz of
+the dead, a forest is spectacular.</p>
+
+<p>The silicone animals live on the plants. They chew them up, dehydrate
+them, and convert their silicious outer bark and carbonaceous
+interiors into silicones for themselves. When silicone tissue is
+metabolized, the carbon and hydrogen go to CO<sub>2</sub> and H<sub>2</sub>O, which
+are breathed out, while the silicone goes into SiO<sub>2</sub>, which is
+deposited as more teeth and armor. (Compare the terrestrial octopus,
+which makes armor-plating out of calcium urate instead of excreting
+urea or uric acid.) The animals can, of course, eat each other too, or
+make a meal of the small carbonaceous animals of the equatorial seas.</p>
+
+<p>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 water
+and CO<sub>2</sub> is too difficult a problem. When they warm up, the water in
+the plants melts and can be disposed of, and things are simpler.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>II</h2>
+
+<h2>THE FLUORINE PLANET</h2>
+<h3>1. THE STAR AND PLANET</h3>
+<p>The planet named Niflheim is the fourth planet of Nu Puppis, right
+angle 6:36, declension -43:09; B8 type star, blue-white and hot, 148
+light years distant from Earth, which will require a speed in excess
+of light to reach it.</p>
+
+<p>Niflheim is 462,000,000 miles from its primary, a little less than the
+distance of Jupiter from our sun. It thus does not receive too great a
+total amount of energy, but what it does receive is of high potential,
+a large fraction of it being in the ultra-violet and higher
+frequencies. (Watch out for really super-special sunburn, etc., on
+unwarned personnel.)</p>
+
+<p>The gravity of Niflheim is approximately 1 g, the atmospheric pressure
+approximately 1 atmosphere, and the average ambient temperature
+about -60&deg;C; -76&deg;F.</p>
+
+
+<h3>2. ATMOSPHERE</h3>
+<p>The oxidizer in the atmosphere is free fluorine (F<sub>2</sub>) in a rather
+low concentration, about 4 or 5 percent. With it appears a mad
+collection of gases. There are a few inert diluents, such as N<sub>2</sub> (nitrogen), argon, helium, neon, etc., but the major fraction consists
+of CF<sub>4</sub> (carbon tetrafluoride), BF<sub>3</sub> (boron trifluoride), SiF<sub>4</sub>
+(silicon tetrafluoride), PF<sub>5</sub> (phosphorous pentafluoride), SF<sub>6</sub> (sulphur hexafluoride) and probably others. In other words, the
+fluorides of all the non-metals that can form fluorides. The
+phosphorous pentafluoride rains out when the weather gets cold. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</a></span>
+is also free oxygen, but no chlorine. That would be liquid except in
+very hot weather. It sometimes appears combined with fluorine in
+chlorine trifluoride. The atmosphere has a slight yellowish tinge.</p>
+
+
+<h3>3. SOIL AND GEOLOGY</h3>
+<p>Above the metallic core of the planet, the lithosphere consists
+exclusively of fluorides of the metals. There are no oxides, sulfides,
+silicates or chlorides. There are small deposits of such things as
+bromine trifluoride, but these have no great importance. Since
+fluorides are weak mechanically, the terrain is flattish. Nothing
+tough like granite to build mountains out of. Since the fluoride ion
+is colorless, the color of the soil depends upon the predominant metal
+in the region. As most of the light metals also have colorless ions,
+the colored rocks are rather rare.</p>
+
+
+<h3>4. THE WATERS UNDER THE EARTH</h3>
+<p>They consist of liquid hydrofluoric acid (HF). It melts at -83&deg;C and
+boils at 19.4&deg;C. In it are dissolved varying quantities of metallic
+and non-metallic fluorides, such as boron trifluoride, sodium
+fluoride, etc. When the oceans and lakes freeze, they do so from the
+bottom up, so there is no layer of ice over free liquid.</p>
+
+
+<h3>5. PLANTS AND PLANT METABOLISM</h3>
+<p>The plants function by photosynthesis, taking HF as water from the
+soil, and carbon tetrafluoride as the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[xviii]</a></span> equivalent of carbon dioxide
+from the air to produce chain compounds, such as:</p>
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image_03.jpg" alt="Table_02" width="400" height="219" /></div>
+
+
+
+<p>and at the same time liberating free fluorine. This reaction could
+only take place on a planet receiving lots of ultra-violet because so
+much energy is needed to break up carbon tetrafluoride and
+hydrofluoric acid. The plant catalyst (doubling for the magnesium in
+chlorophyll) is nickel. The plants are colored in various ways. They
+get their metals from the soil.</p>
+
+
+<h3>6. ANIMALS AND ANIMAL METABOLISM</h3>
+<p>Animals depend upon two main reactions for their energy, and for the
+construction of their harder tissues. The soft tissues are about the
+same as the plant molecules, but the hard tissues are produced by the
+reaction:</p>
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image_04.jpg" alt="Table_03" width="600" height="159" /></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p>resulting in a teflon boned and shelled organism. He's going to be
+tough to do much with. Diatoms leave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[xix]</a></span> strata of powdered teflon. The
+main energy reaction is:</p>
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image_05.jpg" alt="Table_04" width="500" height="159" /></div>
+
+
+
+<p>The blood catalyst metal is titanium, which results in colorless
+arterial blood and violet veinous, as the titanium flips back and
+forth between tri and tetra-valent states.</p>
+
+
+<h3>7. EFFECT ON INTRUDING ITEMS</h3>
+<p>Water decomposes into oxygen and hydrofluoric acid. All organic matter
+(earth type) converts into oxygen, carbon tetrafluoride, hydrofluoric
+acid, etc., with more or less speed. A rubber gas mask lasts about an
+hour. Glass first frosts and then disappears. Plastics act like
+rubber, only a little slower. The heavy metals, iron, nickel, copper,
+monel, etc., stand up well, forming an insoluble coat of fluorides at
+first and then doing nothing else.</p>
+
+
+<h3>8. WHY GO THERE?</h3>
+<p>Large natural crystals of fluorides, such as calcium difluoride,
+titanium tetrafluoride, zirconium tetrafluoride, are extremely useful
+in optical instruments of various forms. Uranium appears as uranium
+hexafluoride, all ready for the diffusion process. Compounds of such
+non-metals as boron are obtainable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">[xx]</a></span> from the atmosphere in high purity
+with very little trouble. All metallurgy must be electrical. There are
+considerable deposits of beryllium, and they occur in high
+concentration in its ores.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="PROLOGUE" id="PROLOGUE"></a>PROLOGUE</h2>
+
+<h3>On Satan's Footstool</h3>
+
+
+<p>The big armor-tender vibrated, gently and not unpleasantly, as the
+contragravity field alternated on and off, occasionally varying its
+normal rate of five hundred to the second when some thermal updraft
+lifted the vehicle and the automatic radar-altimeter control acted to
+alter the frequency and lower it again. Sometimes it rocked slightly,
+like a boat on the water, and, in the big screen which served in lieu
+of a window at the front of the control cabin, the dingy-yellow
+landscape would seem to tilt a little. If unshielded human eyes could
+have endured the rays of Nu Puppis, Niflheim's primary, the whole scene
+would have appeared a vivid Saint Patrick's Day green, the effect of
+the blue-predominant light on the yellow atmosphere. The outside
+'visor-pickup, however, was fitted with filters which blocked out the
+gamma-rays and X-rays and most of the ultra-violet-rays, and added the
+longer light-waves of red and orange which were absent, so that things
+looked much as they would have under the light of a G0-type star like
+Sol. The air was faintly yellow, the sky was yellow with a greenish
+cast, and the clouds were green-gray.</p>
+
+<p>A thousand feet below, the local equivalent of a forest grew, the
+trees, topped with huge ragged leaves, looking like hundred-foot
+stalks of celery. There would be animal life down there, too&mdash;little
+round things,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> four inches across, like eight-legged crabs, gnawing at
+the vegetation, and bigger things, two feet long, with articulated
+shell-armor and sixteen legs, which fed on the smaller herbivores.
+Beyond, in the middleground, was open grassland, if one could so call
+a mat of wormlike colorless or pastel-tinted sprouts, and a river
+meandered through it. On the skyline, fifty miles away, was a range of
+low dunes and hills, none more than a thousand feet high.</p>
+
+<p>No human had ever set foot on the surface, or breathed the air, of
+Niflheim. To have done so would have been instant death; the air was a
+mixture of free fluorine and fluoride gasses, the soil was metallic
+fluorides, damp with acid rains, and the river was pure hydrofluoric
+acid. Even the ordinary spacesuit would have been no protection; the
+glass and rubber and plastic would have disintegrated in a matter of
+minutes. People came to Niflheim, and worked the mines and uranium
+refineries and chemical plants, but they did so inside power-driven
+and contragravity-lifted armor, and they lived on artificial
+satellites two thousand miles off-planet. This vehicle, for instance,
+was built and protected as no spaceship ever had to be, completely
+insulated and entered only through a triple airlock&mdash;an outer lock,
+which would be evacuated outward after it was closed, a middle lock
+kept evacuated at all times, and an inner lock, evacuated into the
+interior of the vehicle before the middle lock could be opened.
+Niflheim was worse than airless, much worse.</p>
+
+<p>The chief engineer sat at his controls, making the minor lateral
+adjustments in the vehicle's position which were not possible to the
+automatic controls. One of the radiomen was receiving from the orbital
+base; the other was saying, over and over, in an ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>asperatedly
+patient voice: "Dr. Murillo. Dr. Murillo. Please come in, Dr.
+Murillo." At his own panel of instruments, a small man with grizzled
+black hair around a bald crown, and a grizzled beard, chewed nervously
+at the stump of a dead cigar and listened intently to what was&mdash;or for
+what wasn't&mdash;coming in to his headset receiver. A couple of assistants
+checked dials and refreshed their memories from notebooks and peered
+anxiously into the big screen. A large, plump-faced, young man in
+soiled khaki shirt and shorts, with extremely hairy legs, was doodling
+on his notepad and eating candy out of a bag. And a black-haired girl
+in a suit of coveralls three sizes too big for her, and, apparently,
+not much of anything else, lounged with one knee hooked over her
+chair-arm, staring into the screen at the distant horizon.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Murillo. Dr. Mur&mdash;" The radioman broke off in mid-syllable and
+listened for a moment. "I hear you, doctor, go ahead." Then, a moment
+later "What's your position, now, doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can see them," the girl said, lifting a hand in front of her. "At
+two o'clock, about one of my hand's-breadths above the horizon."</p>
+
+<p>The man with the grizzled beard put his face into the fur around the
+eyepiece of the telescopic-'visor and twisted a dial. "You have good
+eyes, Miss Quinton," he complimented. "Only four personal armors;
+Ahmed, ask him where the fifth is."</p>
+
+<p>"We only see four of your personal-armors," the radioman said. "Who's
+missing, and why?" He waited for a moment, then lowered the hand-phone
+and turned. "The fifth one's inside the handling-machine. One of the
+Ullerans. Gorkrink."</p>
+
+<p>The larger of the specks that had appeared on the horizon resolved
+itself into a handling-machine, a thing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> like an oversized
+contragravity-tank, with a bulldozer-blade, a stubby derrick-boom
+instead of a gun, and jointed, claw-tipped arms to the sides. The
+smaller dots grew into personal armor&mdash;egg-shaped things that sprouted
+arms and grab-hooks and pushers in all directions. The man with the
+grizzled beard began talking rapidly into his hand-phone, then hung it
+up. There was a series of bumps, and the armor-tender, weightless on
+contragravity, shook as the handling-machine came aboard.</p>
+
+<p>"You ever see any nuclear bombing, Miss Quinton?" the young man with
+the hairy legs asked, offering her his candy bag.</p>
+
+<p>"Only by telecast, back Sol-side," she replied, helping herself.
+"Test-shots at the Federation Navy proving-ground on Mars. I never
+even heard of nuclear bombs being used for mining till I came here,
+though."</p>
+
+<p>"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 been
+dormant for, oh, maybe as long as a thousand years; there ought to be
+a 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 anything
+like basalt in composition&mdash;it'll be intensely compressed metallic
+fluorides, with a very high metal-content. The volcanoes we shot three
+months ago yielded a fine flow of lava with all sorts of
+metals&mdash;nickel, beryllium, vanadium, chromium, indium, as well as
+copper and iron."</p>
+
+<p>"What sort of gas were you speaking about?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Hydrogen. That's what's going to make the fireworks; it combines
+explosively with fluorine. The hydrogen-fluorine combination is what
+passes for combustion here; the result is hydrofluoric acid, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
+local equivalent of water. See, the metallic core of this planet is
+covered, much less thickly than that of Terra, with fluoride
+rock&mdash;fluorspar, and that sort of thing. There's nothing like granite
+here, for instance. That's why those big dunes, out there, are the
+best Niflheim has in the way of mountains. The subsurface hydrogen is
+produced when the acid filters down through the rock, combines with
+pure metals underneath."</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Murillo's inside, now," the radioman said. "Just came out of the
+inner airlock. He'll be up as soon as he gets out of his
+pressure-suit."</p>
+
+<p>"As soon as he gets here, I'll touch it off," the bearded man said.
+"Everything set, de Jong?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everything ready, Dr. Gomes," one of his assistants assured him.</p>
+
+<p>The door at the rear of the control-cabin opened, and Juan Murillo,
+the seismologist, entered, followed by an assistant. Murillo was a big
+man, copper-skinned, barrel-chested; he looked like a third-or
+fourth-generation Martian, of Andes Indian ancestry. He came forward
+and stood behind Gomes' chair, looking down at the instruments. His
+assistant stopped at the door. This assistant was not human. He was a
+biped, vaguely humanoid, but he had four arms and a face like a
+lizard's, and, except for some equipment on a belt, he was entirely
+naked.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke rapidly to Murillo, in a squeaking jabber. Murillo turned.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if you wish, Gorkrink," he said, in the
+English-Spanish-Afrikaans-Portuguese mixture that was Sixth Century,
+A.E., Lingua Terra. Then he turned back to Gomes as the Ulleran sat
+down in a chair by the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she's all yours, Louren&ccedil;o, shoot the works."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Gomes stabbed the radio-detonator button in front of him. A voice came
+out of the PA-speaker overhead: "In sixty seconds, the bombs will be
+detonated ... thirty seconds ... fifteen seconds ... ten seconds ...
+five seconds, four seconds, three seconds, two seconds, one
+second...."</p>
+
+<p>Out on the rolling skyline, fifty miles away, a lancelike ray of
+blue-white light shot up into the gathering dusk&mdash;a clump of five
+rays, really, from five deep shafts in an irregular pentagon half a
+mile across, blended into one by the distance. An instant later, there
+was a blinding flash, like sheet-lightning, and a huge ball of
+varicolored fire belched upward, leaving a series of smoke-rings to
+float more slowly after it. That fireball flattened, then spread to
+form the mushroom-head of a column of incandescent gas that mounted to
+overtake it, engorging the smoke-rings as it rose, twisting, writhing,
+changing shape, turning to dark smoke in one moment and belching flame
+and crackling with lightning the next. The armor-tender began to pitch
+and roll; it was all the engineer and one of the assistants could do,
+together, to keep it level.</p>
+
+<p>"In about half an hour," the large young man told the girl, "the real
+fireworks should be starting. What's coming up now is just small
+debris from the nuclear blast. When the shockwaves get down far enough
+to crack things open, the gas'll come up, and then steam and ash, and
+then the magma. This one ought to be twice as good as the one we shot
+three months ago; it ought to be every bit as good as Krakatoa, on
+Terra, in 59 Pre-Atomic."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, even this much was worth staying over for," the girl said,
+watching the screen.</p>
+
+<p>"You going on to Uller on the <i>City of Canberra</i>?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> Louren&ccedil;o Gomes
+asked. "I wish I were; I have to stay over and make another shot, in a
+month or so, and I've had about all of Niflheim I can take, now. The
+sooner I get onto a planet where they don't ration the air, the better
+I'll like it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what do you know!" the large young man with the hairy legs
+mock-marveled. "He doesn't like our nice planet!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nice planet!" Gomes muttered something. "They call Terra God's
+Footstool; well, I'll give you one guess who uses this thing to prop
+his cloven hoofs on."</p>
+
+<p>"When are you going to Terra?" the girl asked him.</p>
+
+<p>"Terra? I don't know, a year, two years. But I'm going to Uller on the
+next ship&mdash;the <i>City of Pretoria</i>&mdash;if we get the next blast off in
+time. They want me to design some improvements on a couple of
+power-reactors, so I'll probably see you when I get there."</p>
+
+<p>"Here she comes!" the chief engineer called. "Watch the base of the
+column!"</p>
+
+<p>The pillar of fiery smoke and dust, still boiling up from where the
+bombs had gone off far underground, was being violently agitated at
+the bottom. A series of new flashes broke out, lifting and spreading
+the incandescent radioactive gasses, and then a great gush of flame
+rose. A column of pure hydrogen must have rushed up into the vacuum
+created by the explosion; the next blast of flame, in a lateral sheet,
+came at nearly ten thousand feet above the ground, and great rags of
+fire, changing from red to violet and back through the spectrum to red
+again, went soaring away to dissipate in the upper atmosphere. Then
+geysers of hot ash and molten rock spouted upward; some of the
+white-hot debris landed almost at the acid river, half-way to the
+armor-tender.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We've started a first-class earthquake, too," the Hispano-Indian
+Martian Murillo said, looking at the instruments. "About six big
+cracks opening in the rock-structure. You know, when this quiets down
+and cools off, we'll have more ore on the surface than we can handle
+in ten years, and more than we could have mined by ordinary means in
+fifty."</p>
+
+<p>About four miles from the original blast, another eruption began with
+a terrific gas-explosion.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that finishes our work," the large young man said, going to a
+kitbag in the corner of the cabin and getting out a bottle. "Get some
+of those plastic cups, over there, somebody; this one calls for a
+drink."</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," Gomes said. "You do something once, it may be an
+accident; you repeat the performance, and it's a success." He began
+pushing papers aside on his desk, and the girl in the too-ample
+coveralls brought drinking cups.</p>
+
+<p>The Ulleran, in the background, rose quickly and squeaked
+apologetically. Murillo nodded. "Yes, of course, Gorkrink. No need for
+you to stay here." The Ulleran went out, closing the door behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"That taboo against Ullerans and Terrans watching each other eat and
+drink," Murillo said. "What is that, part of their religion?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, it's their version of modesty," the girl replied. "Like some of
+our sex-inhibitions, which they can't even begin to understand.... But
+you were speaking to him in Lingua Terra; I didn't know any of them
+understood it."</p>
+
+<p>"Gorkrink does," Murillo said, uncorking the bottle and pouring into
+the plastic cups. "None of them can speak it, of course, because of
+the structure of their vocal organs, any more than we can speak their
+languages without artificial aids. But I can talk to him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> in Lingua
+Terra without having to put one of those damn gags in my mouth, and he
+can pass my instructions on to the others. He's been a big help; I'll
+be sorry to lose him."</p>
+
+<p>"Lose him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, his year's up; he's going back to Uller on the <i>Canberra</i>. You
+know, it's impossible to keep some trace of fluorine from the air in
+the handling-machines, or even out on the orbiters, and it plays the
+devil with their lungs. He wanted to stay on another three months, to
+help with the next shot, but the medics wouldn't hear of it.... He's
+from Keegark, wherever on Uller that is; claims to be a prince, or
+something. I know all the other geeks kowtow to him. But he's a damn
+good worker. Very smart; picks things up the first time you tell him.
+I'll recommend him unqualifiedly for any kind of work with
+contragravity or mechanized equipment."</p>
+
+<p>They all had drinks, now, except the chief engineer, who wanted a
+rain-check on his.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, here's to us," Murillo said. "The first A-bomb miners in
+history...."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I.</h2>
+
+<h3>Commander-in-Chief Front and Center</h3>
+
+
+<p>General Carlos von Schlichten threw his cigarette away, flexed his
+hands in his gloves, and set his monocle more firmly in his eye,
+stepping forward as the footsteps on the stairway behind him ceased
+and the other officers emerged from the squat flint keep&mdash;Captain
+Cazabielle, the post CO; big, chocolate-brown Brigadier-General
+Themistocles M'zangwe; little Colonel Hideyoshi O'Leary. Far in front
+of him, to the left, the horizon was lost in the cloudbank over Takkad
+Sea; directly in front, and to the right, the brown and gray and black
+flint mountains sawed into the sky until they vanished in the
+distance. Unseen below, the old caravan-trail climbed one side of the
+pass and slid down the other, a sheer five hundred feet below the
+parapet and the two corner catapult-platforms which now mounted 90-mm
+guns. On the little hundred-foot-square parade ground in front of the
+keep, his aircar was parked, and the soldiers were assembled.</p>
+
+<p>Ten or twelve of them were Terrans&mdash;a couple of lieutenants,
+sergeants, gunners, technicians, the sergeant-driver and
+corporal-gunner of his own car. The other fifty-odd were Ulleran
+natives. They stood erect on stumpy legs and broad, six-toed feet.
+They had four arms apiece, one pair from true shoulders and the other
+connected to a pseudo-pelvis midway down the torso. Their skins were
+slate-gray and rubbery,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> speckled with pinhead-sized bits of quartz
+that had been formed from perspiration, for their body-tissues were
+silicone instead of carbon-hydrogen. Their narrow heads were
+unpleasantly saurian; they had small, double-lidded red eyes, and
+slit-like nostrils, and wide mouths filled with opalescent teeth.
+Except for their belts and equipment, they were completely naked; the
+uniform consisted of the emblem of the Chartered Uller Company
+stencil-painted on chests and backs. Clothing, to them, was
+unnecessary, either for warmth or modesty. As to the former, they were
+cold-blooded and could stand a temperature-range of from a hundred and
+twenty to minus one hundred Centigrade. Von Schlichten had seen them
+sleeping in the open with their bodies covered with frost or freezing
+rain; he had also seen them wade through boiling water. As to the
+second, they had practically no sex-inhibitions; they were all of the
+same gender, true, functional, hermaphrodites. Any individual among
+them could bear young, or fertilize the ova of any other individual.
+Fifteen years ago, when he had come to Uller as a former Terran
+Federation captain newly commissioned colonel in the army of the Uller
+Company, it had taken some time before he had become accustomed to the
+detailing of a non-com and a couple of privates out of each platoon
+for baby-sitting duty. At least, though, they didn't have the
+squaw-trouble around army posts on Uller that they had on Thor, where
+he had last been stationed.</p>
+
+<p>An airjeep, coming in out of the sun, circled the crag-top fort and
+let down onto the terrace next to von Schlichten's command-car. It
+carried a bristle of 15-mm machine-guns, and two of the eight 50-mm
+rocket-tubes on either side were empty and freshly smoke-stained. The
+duraglass canopy slid back, and the two-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>man crew&mdash;lieutenant-driver
+and sergeant-gunner&mdash;jumped out. Von Schlichten knew them both.</p>
+
+<p>"Lieutenant Kendall; Sergeant Garcia," he greeted. "Good afternoon,
+gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>Both saluted, in the informal, hell-with-rank-we're-all-human manner
+of Terran soldiers on extraterrestrial duty, and returned the
+greeting.</p>
+
+<p>"How's the Jeel situation?" he asked, then nodded toward the fired
+rocket-tubes. "I see you had some shooting."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," the lieutenant said. "Two bands of them. We sighted the
+first coming up the eastern side of the mountain about two miles this
+side of the Blue Springs. We got about half of them with MG-fire, and
+the rest dived into a big rock-crevice. We had to use two rockets on
+them, 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 mile
+this side of Zortolk's Old Fort. There were only six of them; they
+were 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 been
+eating inside the family quite a bit, lately. We let them have two
+rockets. No survivors. Not many very big pieces, in fact. We let down
+at Zortolk's for a beer, after that, and Captain Martinelli told us
+that one of his jeeps caught what he thinks was the same band that was
+down off the mountain night-before-last and ate those peasants on
+Prince Neeldink's estate."</p>
+
+<p>"By God, I'm glad to hear that!" There'd been a perfect hell of a flap
+about that business. Before the Terrans came to Uller, it was a good
+year when not more than five hundred farm-folk would be killed and
+eaten by Jeel cannibals. The incident of two nights ago had been the
+first of its kind in almost six months,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> but the nobleman whose serfs
+had been eaten was practically accusing the Company of responsibility
+for the crime. "I'll see that Neeldink is informed. The more you do
+for these damned geeks, the more they expect from you.... When you get
+your vehicle re-ammoed, lieutenant, suppose you buzz back to where you
+machine-gunned that first gang. If there are any more around, they'll
+have 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'd
+heard from the cannibal-extermination project for some time.</p>
+
+<p>He turned to Themistocles M'zangwe. "In about two weeks, get a little
+task-force together. Say ten combat-cars, about twenty airjeeps, and a
+battalion of Kragan Rifles in troop-carriers. Oh, yes, and this
+good-for-nothing Konkrook Fencibles outfit of Prince Jaizerd's; they
+can be used for beaters, and to block escape routes." He turned back
+to Lieutenant Kendall and Sergeant Garcia. "Good work, boys. And if
+the synchro-photos show that any of that first bunch got away, don't
+feel too badly about it. These Jeels can hide on the top of a
+pool-table."</p>
+
+<p>He climbed into the command-car, followed by Themistocles M'zangwe and
+Hideyoshi O'Leary. Sergeant Harry Quong and Corporal Hassan Bogdanoff
+took their places on the front seat; the car lifted, turned to nose
+into the wind, and rose in a slow spiral. Below, the fort grew
+smaller, a flat-topped rectangle of masonry overlooking the pass, a
+gun covering each approach, and two more on the square keep to cover
+the rocky hogback on which the fort had been built, with the flagpole
+between them. Once that pole had lifted a banner of ragged black
+marsh-flopper skin bearing the device of the Kragan riever-chieftain
+whose family<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> had built the castle; now it carried a neat rectangle of
+blue bunting emblazoned with the wreathed globe of the Terran
+Federation and, below that, the blue-gray pennant which bore the
+vermilion trademark of the Chartered Uller Company.</p>
+
+<p>"Where now, sir?" Harry Quong asked.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at his watch. Seventeen-hundred; there wasn't time for a
+visit to Zortolk's Old Fort, ten miles to the north at the next pass.</p>
+
+<p>"Back to Konkrook, to the island."</p>
+
+<p>The nose of the car swung east by south; the cold-jet rotors began
+humming and then the hot-jets were cut in. The car turned from the
+fort and the mountains and shot away over the foothills toward the
+coastal plain. Below were forests, yellow-green with new foliage of
+the second growing season of the equatorial year, veined with narrow
+dirt roads and spotted with occasional clearings. Farther east, the
+dirty gray woodsmoke of Uller marked the progress of the
+charcoal-burnings. It took forty years to burn the forests clear back
+to 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 the
+south, he could see the dark green squares, where the hemlocks and
+Norway spruce had been planted by the Company. With a little chemical
+fertilizer, they were doing well, and they made better charcoal than
+the silicate-heavy native wood. That was the only natural fuel on
+Uller; there was no coal, of course, since fallen timber and even
+standing dead trees petrified in a matter of a couple of years. There
+was too much silica on Uller, and not enough of anything else; what
+would be coal-seams on Terra were strata of silicified wood. And, of
+course, there was no petroleum. There was less charcoal being burned
+now than formerly; the Uller<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> Company had been bringing in great
+quantities of synthetic thermoconcentrate-fuel, and had been setting
+up nuclear furnaces and nuclear-electric power-plants, wherever they
+gained a foothold on the planet.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the forests came the farmlands. Around the older estates, thick
+walls 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 walls
+falling into disrepair. Some of the newer farms, land devoted to
+agriculture with the declining demand for charcoal, had neither moats
+nor walls. That was the Company, too; the huge shell-armored beasts
+had become virtually extinct in the Konk Isthmus now, since the
+introduction of bazookas and recoilless rifles. There seemed to be
+quite a bit of power-equipment working in the fields, and big
+contragravity lorries were drifting back and forth, scattering
+fertilizer, mainly nitrates from Mimir or Yggdrasill. There were still
+a good number of animal-drawn plows and harrows in use, however.</p>
+
+<p>As planets went, Uller was no bargain, he thought sourly. At times, he
+wished he had never followed the lure of rapid promotion and
+fantastically high pay and left the Federation regulars for the army
+of the Uller Company. If he hadn't, he'd probably be a colonel, at
+five thousand sols a year, but maybe it would be better to be a
+middle-aged colonel on a decent planet&mdash;Odin, with its two moons,
+Hugin and Munin, and its wide grasslands and its evergreen forests
+that looked and even smelled like the pinewoods of Terra, or Baldur,
+with snow-capped mountains, and clear, cold lakes, and rocky rivers
+dashing under great vine-hung trees, or Freya, where the people were
+human to the last degree and the women were so breathtakingly
+beautiful&mdash;than a Company army general at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> twenty-five thousand on
+this combination icebox, furnace, wind-tunnel and stonepile, where the
+water tasted like soapsuds and left a crackly film when it dried;
+where the temperature ranged, from pole to pole, between two hundred
+and fifty and minus a hundred and fifty Fahrenheit and the
+Beaufort-scale ran up to thirty; where nothing that ran or swam or
+grew was fit for a human to eat, and where the people....</p>
+
+<p>Of course, there were worse planets than Uller. There was Nidhog, cold
+and foggy, its equatorial zone a gloomy marsh and the rest of the
+planet locked in eternal ice. There was Bifrost, which always kept the
+same face turned to its primary; one side blazingly hot and the other
+close to absolute zero, with a narrow and barely habitable twilight
+zone between. There was Mimir, swarming with a race of
+semi-intelligent quasi-rodents, murderous, treacherous, utterly
+vicious. Or Niflheim. The Uller Company had the franchise for
+Niflheim, too; they'd had to take that and agree to exploit the
+planet's resources in order to get the franchise for Uller, which
+furnished a good quick measure of the comparative merits of the two.</p>
+
+<p>Ahead, the city of Konkrook sprawled along the delta of the Konk river
+and 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, and
+not at all this late in the northern summer. The aircar lost altitude,
+and the hot-jet stopped firing. They came gliding in over the suburbs
+and the yellow-green parks, over the low one-story dwellings and
+shops, the lofty temples and palaces, the fantastically twisted
+towers, following a street that became increasingly mean and squalid
+as it neared the industrial district along the waterfront.</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten, on the right, glanced idly down,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> puffing slowly on
+his cigarette. Then he stiffened, the muscles around his right eye
+clamping tighter on the monocle. Leaning forward, he punched Harry
+Quong lightly on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Circle back, sergeant; let's have a look at that street again," he
+directed. "Something going on, down there; looks like a riot."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir; I saw it," the Chinese-Australian driver replied. "Terrans
+in trouble; bein' mobbed by geeks. Aircar parked right in the bloody
+middle of it."</p>
+
+<p>The car made a twisting, banking loop and came back, more slowly.
+Colonel Hideyoshi O'Leary was using the binoculars.</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," he said. "Terrans being mobbed. Two of them, backed up
+against a house. I saw one of them firing a pistol."</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten had the handset of the car's radio, and was punching
+out the combination of the Company guardhouse on Gongonk Island; he
+held down the signal button until he got an answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Von Schlichten, in car over Konkrook. Riot on Fourth Avenue, just off
+Seventy-second Street." No Terran could possibly remember the names of
+Konkrook's streets; even native troops recruited from outside found
+the numbers easier to learn and remember. "Geeks mobbing a couple of
+Terrans. I'm going down, now, to do what I can to help; send troops in
+a hurry. Kragan Rifles. And stand by; my driver'll give it to you as
+it happens."</p>
+
+<p>The voice of somebody at the guardhouse, bawling orders, came out of
+the receiver as he tossed the phone forward over Harry Quong's
+shoulder; Quong caught it and began speaking rapidly and urgently into
+it while he steered with the other hand. Von Schlichten took one of
+the five-pound spiked riot-maces out of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> rack in front of him.
+Themistocles M'zangwe had already drawn his pistol; he shifted it to
+his left hand and took a mace in his right. The Nipponese-Irish
+colonel, looking like a homicidally infuriated pixie, had an automatic
+in one hand and a long dagger in the other.</p>
+
+<p>Harry Quong and Hassan Bogdanoff were old Uller hands; they'd done
+this sort of work before. Bogdanoff rose into the ball-turret and
+swung the twin 15-mm's around, cutting loose. Quong brought the car in
+fast, at about shoulder-height on the mob. Between them, they left a
+swath of mangled, killed, wounded, and stunned natives. Then, spinning
+the car around, Quong set it down hard on a clump of rioters as close
+as possible to the struggling group around the two Terrans. Von
+Schlichten threw back the canopy and jumped out of the car, O'Leary
+and M'zangwe behind him.</p>
+
+<p>There was another aircar, a dark maroon civilian job, at the curb; its
+native driver was slumped forward over the controls, a short
+crossbow-bolt sticking out of his neck. Backed against the closed door
+of a house, a Terran with white hair and a small beard was clubbing
+futilely with an empty pistol. He was wounded, and blood was streaming
+over his face. His companion, a young woman in a long fur coat, was
+laying about her with a native bolo-knife.</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten's mace had a spiked ball-head, and a four-inch spike in
+front of that. He smashed the ball down on the back of one Ulleran's
+head, and jabbed another in the rump with the spike.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Zak! Zak!</i>" he yelled, in pidgin-Ulleran. "<i>Jik-jik</i>, you
+lizard-faced Creator's blunder!"</p>
+
+<p>The Ulleran whirled, swinging a blade somewhere between a big
+butcherknife and a small machete. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> mouth was open, and there was
+froth on his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Znidd suddabit!</i>" he screamed.</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten parried the cut on the steel shaft of his mace.
+"<i>Suddabit</i> yourself, you geek bastard!" he shouted back, ramming the
+spike-end into the opal-filled mouth. "And <i>znidd</i> you, too," he
+added, recovering and slamming the ball-head down on the narrow
+saurian skull. The Ulleran went down, spurting a yellow fluid about
+the consistency of gun-oil. Then, without wasting words, he maced
+another of the things.</p>
+
+<p>Ahead, one of the natives had caught the wounded Terran with both
+lower hands, and was raising a dagger with his upper right. The girl
+in the fur coat swung wildly, slashing the knife-arm, then chopped
+down on the creature's neck. To one side, a native somewhat better
+dressed than the others, to the extent of a couple of belts with gold
+ornaments, drew a Terran automatic. Von Schlichten hurled his mace and
+drew his pistol, thumbing off the safety as he swung it up, but before
+he could fire, Hassan Bogdanoff had seen and swung his guns around;
+the double burst caught the native in the chest and fairly tore him
+apart.</p>
+
+<p>Another of them closed with the girl, grabbing her right arm with all
+four hands and biting at her; she screamed and kicked her attacker in
+the groin, where an Ulleran is, if anything, even more vulnerable than
+a Terran. The native howled hideously, and von Schlichten, jumping
+over a couple of corpses, shoved the muzzle of his pistol into the
+creature's open mouth and pulled the trigger, blowing its head apart
+like a rotten pumpkin and splashing both himself and the girl with
+yellow blood and rancid-looking gray-green brains.</p>
+
+<p>Hideyoshi O'Leary, jumping forward after von<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> Schlichten, stuck his
+dagger into the neck of a rioter and left it there, then caught the
+girl around the waist with his free arm. Themistocles M'zangwe dropped
+his mace and swung the frail-looking man onto his back. Together, they
+struggled back to the command-car, von Schlichten covering the retreat
+with his pistol. Another rioter&mdash;a Zirk nomad from the North, he
+guessed&mdash;was aiming one of the long-barreled native air-rifles,
+holding the ten-inch globe of the air-chamber in both lower hands. Von
+Schlichten shot him, and the Zirk literally blew to pieces.</p>
+
+<p>For an instant, he wondered how the small bursting-charge of a 10-mm
+explosive pistol-bullet could accomplish such havoc, and assumed that
+the native had been carrying a bomb in his belt. Then another
+explosion 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 swept
+between the hovels on one side and the warehouses on the other,
+strafing the mob, darted up to a thousand feet, looped, and came
+swooping back, and this time there were three long blue-gray
+troop-carriers behind them.</p>
+
+<p>These landed in the hastily cleared street and began disgorging native
+Company soldiers&mdash;Kragan mercenaries, he noted with satisfaction. They
+carried a modified version of the regular Terran Federation infantry
+rifle, 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 of
+the mob. Four-handed soldiers can deliver a simply astonishing volume
+of fire, particularly when armed with auto-rifles having twenty-shot
+drop-out maga<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>zines which can be changed with the lower hands without
+lowering the weapon.</p>
+
+<p>There was a clatter of shod hoofs, and a company of the King of
+Konkrook's cavalry came trotting up on their six-legged,
+lizard-headed, quartz-speckled mounts. Some of these charged into side
+alleys, joyfully lancing and cutting down fleeing rioters, while
+others dismounted, three tossing their reins to a fourth, and went to
+work with their crossbows. Von Schlichten, who ordinarily entertained
+a dim opinion of the King of Konkrook's soldiery, admitted,
+grudgingly, that it was smart work; four hands were a big help in
+using a crossbow, too.</p>
+
+<p>A Terran captain of native infantry came over, saluting.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you and your people all right, general?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten glanced at the front seat of his car, where Harry
+Quong, a pistol in his right hand, was still talking into the
+radio-phone, and Hassan Bogdanoff was putting fresh belts into his
+guns. Then he saw that the Graeco-African brigadier and the
+Irish-Japanese colonel had gotten the wounded man into the car. The
+girl, having dropped her bolo, was leaning against the side of the
+car, one foot heedlessly in what was left of an Ulleran who had gotten
+smashed under it, weak with nervous reaction.</p>
+
+<p>"We seem to be, Captain Pedolsky. Very smart work; you must have those
+vehicles of yours on hyperspace-drive.... How is he, colonel?"</p>
+
+<p>"We'd better get him to the hospital, right away," O'Leary replied. "I
+think he has a concussion."</p>
+
+<p>"Harry, call the hospital. Tell them what the score is, and tell them
+we're bringing the casualty in to their top landing stage.... Why,
+we'll make out very nicely,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> captain. You'd better stay around with
+your Kragans and make sure that these geeks of King Jaikark's don't
+let the riot flare up again and get away from them. And don't let them
+get the impression that they can maintain order around here without
+our help; the Company would like to see that attitude discouraged."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, I understand." Captain Pedolsky opened the pouch on his
+belt and took out the false palate and tongue-clicker without which no
+Terran could do more than mouth a crude and barely comprehensible
+pidgin-Ulleran. Stuffing the gadget into his mouth, he turned and
+began jabbering orders.</p>
+
+<p>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 the
+jump-seats. The driver put on the contragravity-field, and the car
+lifted up.</p>
+
+<p>"Them, see if there's a flask and a drinking-cup in the door pocket
+next to you," he said. "I think Miss Quinton could use a drink."</p>
+
+<p>The girl turned. Even in her present disheveled condition, she was
+beautiful&mdash;a trifle on the petite side, with black hair and black eyes
+that quirked up oddly at the outer corners. Her nails were
+black-lacquered and spotted with little gold stars, evidently a new
+feminine fad from Terra.</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly could, general.... How did you know my name?"</p>
+
+<p>"You've been on Uller for the last three months; ever since the <i>City
+of Canberra</i> got in from Niflheim. On Uller, there aren't enough of us
+that everybody doesn't know all about everybody else. You're Dr. Paula
+Quinton; you're an extraterrestrial sociographer, and you're a
+field-agent for the Extraterrestrials' Rights<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> Association, like
+Mohammed Ferriera, here." He took the cup and flask from Themistocles
+M'zangwe and poured her a drink. "Take this easy, now; Baldur
+honey-rum, a hundred and fifty proof."</p>
+
+<p>He watched her sip the stuff cautiously, cough over the first
+mouthful, and then get the rest of it down.</p>
+
+<p>"More?" When she shook her head, he stoppered the flask and relieved
+her of the cup. "What were you doing in that district, anyhow?" he
+wanted to know. "I'd have thought Mohammed Ferriera would have had
+more sense than to take you there, or go there, himself, for that
+matter."</p>
+
+<p>"We went to visit a friend of his, a native named Keeluk, who seems to
+be a sort of combination clergyman and labor leader," she replied.
+"I'm going to observe labor conditions at the North Pole mines in a
+short while, and Mr. Keeluk was going to give me letters of
+introduction to friends of his at Skilk."</p>
+
+<p>With the aid of his monocle, von Schlichten managed to keep a straight
+face. Neither M'zangwe nor O'Leary had any such aid; the African
+rolled his eyes and the Japanese-Irishman grimaced.</p>
+
+<p>"We talked with Mr. Keeluk for a while," the girl said, "and when we
+came out, we found that our driver had been killed and a mob had
+gathered. Of course, we were carrying pistols; they're part of this
+survival-kit you make everybody carry, along with the
+emergency-rations and 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 that big knife...."</p>
+
+<p>"That's why you're still alive," von Schlichten commented.</p>
+
+<p>"We wouldn't be if you hadn't come along," she told him. "I never in
+my life saw anything as beautiful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> as you coming through that mob
+swinging that war-club!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I never saw anything much more beautiful than those 40-mm's
+beginning to land in the mob," von Schlichten replied.</p>
+
+<p>The aircar swung out over Konkrook Channel and headed toward the
+blue-gray Company buildings on Gongonk Island, and the Company
+airport, swarming with lorries and airboats, where the ten
+thousand-ton <i>Oom Paul Kruger</i> had just come in from Keegark, and the
+Company's one real warship, the cruiser <i>Procyon</i>, was lifting out for
+Grank, in the North. Down at the southern tip of the island, the
+three-thousand-foot globe of the spaceship <i>City of Pretoria</i>, from
+Niflheim, was loading with cargo for Terra.</p>
+
+<p>"Just what happened, while you and Mr. Ferriera were in Keeluk's
+house. Miss Quinton?" Hideyoshi O'Leary asked, trying not to sound
+official. "Was Keeluk with you all the time? Or did he go out for a
+while, say fifteen or twenty minutes before you left?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes, he did." Paula Quinton looked surprised. "How did you guess
+it? You see, a dog started barking, behind the house, and he excused
+himself and...."</p>
+
+<p>"A dog?" von Schlichten almost shouted. The other officers echoed him,
+and on the front seat, Harry Quong said, "Coo-bli'me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes...." Paula Quinton's eyes widened. "But there are no dogs on
+Uller, except a few owned by Terrans. And wasn't there something about
+...?"</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten had the radio-phone and was calling the command car at
+the scene of the riot. The sergeant-driver answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Von Schlichten here; my compliments to Captain Pedolsky, and tell him
+he's to make immediate and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> thorough search of the house in front of
+which the incident occurred, and adjoining houses. For his
+information, that's Keeluk's house. Tell him to look for traces of
+Governor-General Harrington's collie, or any of the other terrestrial
+animals that have been disappearing&mdash;that goat, for instance, or those
+rabbits. And I want Keeluk brought in, alive and in condition to be
+interrogated. I'll send more troops, or Constabulary, to help you." He
+handed the phone to M'zangwe. "You take care of that end of it, Them;
+you know who can be spared."</p>
+
+<p>"But, what ...?" the girl began.</p>
+
+<p>"That's why you were attacked," he told her. "Keeluk was afraid to let
+you get away from there alive to report hearing that dog, so he went
+out and had a gang of thugs rounded up to kill you."</p>
+
+<p>"But he was only gone five minutes."</p>
+
+<p>"In five minutes, I can put all the troops in Konkrook into action.
+Keeluk doesn't have radio or TV&mdash;we hope&mdash;but he has his forces
+concentrated, and he has a pretty good staff."</p>
+
+<p>"But Mr. Keeluk's a friend of ours. He knows what our Association is
+trying to do for his people...."</p>
+
+<p>"So he shows his appreciation by setting that mob on you. Look, he has
+a lot of influence in that section. When you were attacked, why wasn't
+he out trying to quiet the mob?"</p>
+
+<p>"When they jumped you, you tried to get back into the house," M'zangwe
+put in. "And you found the door barred against you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but...." The girl looked troubled; M'zangwe had guessed right.
+"But what's all the excitement about the dog? What is it, the sacred
+totem-animal of the Uller Company?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's just a big brown collie, named Stalin, like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> half the dogs on
+Terra. Somebody stole it, and Keeluk was keeping it, and we want to
+know why. We don't like geek mysteries; not when they lead to
+murderous attacks on Terrans, at least."</p>
+
+<p>The aircar let down on the hospital landing stage. A stretcher was
+waiting, with a Terran interne and two Ulleran orderlies. They got the
+still-unconscious Mohammed Ferriera out of the car.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better go with them, yourself, Miss Quinton," von Schlichten
+advised. "You have a couple of nasty-looking bruises and bumps. A
+couple of abrasions, too, where those geeks grabbed you; they have
+hides like sandpaper. And better have that coat cleaned, before that
+goo on it hardens, or it'll be ruined."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You have a lot of it on your uniform, too."</p>
+
+<p>He glanced down at the blue-gray jacket. "So I have. And another
+thing. Those letters Keeluk was going to give you, the ones to his
+friends in Skilk. Did you get them?"</p>
+
+<p>She felt in the pocket of her coat. "Yes. I still have them."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you'd let Colonel O'Leary have a look at them. There may be
+more to them than you think.... Hid, will you go with Miss Quinton?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II.</h2>
+
+<h3>Rakkeed, Stalin, and the Rev. Keeluk</h3>
+
+
+<p>Von Schlichten, in a fresh uniform, sat at the end of the table in
+Sidney Harrington's office; Harrington and Eric Blount, the
+Lieutenant-Governor, faced each other across it, over the three-foot
+disc of an Ulleran chess-board. Harrington had the white, or center,
+position. Blount, sandy-haired and considerably younger, was playing
+black, and his pieces were closing in relentlessly from the outer rim.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then what?" Harrington asked.</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten dropped ash from his cigarette into the tray that
+served all three of them.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing much," he replied. "Keeluk bugged out as soon as he saw my
+car let down. We picked up a few of his ragtag-and-bobtail, and
+they're being questioned now, but I doubt if they'll tell us anything
+we don't know already. The dog had been kept in a lean-to back of the
+house; it had been removed, probably as soon as Keeluk called in his
+goon-gang. At least one of the rabbits had been kept on the premises,
+too, some time ago. No trace of the goat."</p>
+
+<p>He watched Blount move one of his pieces and nodded approvingly. "The
+riot's been put down," he continued, "but we're keeping two companies
+of Kragans in the city, and about a dozen airjeeps patrolling the
+section from Eightieth down to Sixty-fourth, and from the waterfront
+back to Eighth Avenue. There is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> also the equivalent of a regiment of
+King Jaikark's infantry&mdash;spearmen, crossbowmen, and a few
+riflemen&mdash;and two of those outsize cavalry companies of his, helping
+hold the lid down. They're making mass arrests, indiscriminately. More
+slaves for Jaikark's court favorite, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Or else Gurgurk wants them to use for patronage," Blount added. "He's
+been building quite a political organization, lately. Getting ready to
+shove Jaikark off the throne, I'd say."</p>
+
+<p>Harrington pushed one of his pieces out along a radial line toward the
+rim. Blount promptly took a pawn, which, under Ulleran rules, entitled
+him to a second move. He shifted another piece, a sort of combination
+knight and bishop, to threaten the piece Harrington had moved.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Gurgurk wouldn't dare try anything like that," the
+Governor-General said. "He knows we wouldn't let him get away with it.
+We have too much of an investment in King Jaikark."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why's Gurgurk been supporting this damned Rakkeed?" Blount
+wanted to know, hastily interposing a piece. "Gurgurk can follow one
+of two lines of policy. He can undertake to heave Jaikark off the
+throne and seize power, or he has to support Jaikark on the throne.
+We're subsidizing Jaikark. Rakkeed has been preaching this crusade
+against the Terrans, and against Jaikark, whom we control. Gurgurk has
+been subsidizing Rakkeed...."</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't any proof of that," Harrington protested.</p>
+
+<p>"My Intelligence Section has," von Schlichten put in. "We can give
+sums of money, and dates, and the names of the intermediaries through
+whom they were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> paid to Rakkeed. Eric is absolutely correct in making
+that statement."</p>
+
+<p>"Personally, I think Gurgurk's plan is something like this: Rakkeed
+will stir up anti-Terran sentiment here in Konkrook, and direct it
+against our puppet, Jaikark, as well as against us," Blount said.
+"When the outbreak comes, Jaikark will be killed, and then Gurgurk
+will step in, seize the Palace, and use the Royal army to put down the
+revolt that he's incited in the first place. That will put him in the
+position of the friend of the Company, and most of his dupes will be
+rounded up and sold as slaves, and King Gurgurk'll pocket the
+proceeds. The only question is, will Rakkeed let himself be used that
+way? I think Rakkeed's bigger than Gurgurk ever can be. And more of a
+threat to the Company. Everywhere we turn, Rakkeed's at the bottom of
+whatever happens to be wrong. This business, for instance; Keeluk's
+one of Rakkeed's followers."</p>
+
+<p>"Eric, you have Rakkeed on the brain!" Harrington exclaimed
+impatiently, then moved the threatened piece counterclockwise on the
+circle where he had placed it. "He's just a barbarian caravan-driver."</p>
+
+<p>Eric Blount moved the piece that had taken Harrington's pawn.</p>
+
+<p>"Your king's in danger," he warned. "And Hitler was just a
+paper-hanger."</p>
+
+<p>"Rakkeed has no following, except among the rabble." Harrington puffed
+furiously at his pipe, trying to figure the best protection for his
+king.</p>
+
+<p>"You just think he hasn't," Blount retorted. "Here in Konkrook, he's
+always entertained by one or another of the big ship-owning nobles.
+They probably deprecate his table-manners, but they just love his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
+politics. And the same thing at Keegark, and at the Free Cities along
+the Eastern Shore."</p>
+
+<p>"The last time Rakkeed was in Konkrook, he was the guest of the
+Keegarkan Ambassador," von Schlichten stated. "Intelligence got that
+from a spy we'd planted among the embassy servants."</p>
+
+<p>"You sure this spy wasn't just romancing?" Harrington asked. "You get
+so confounded many wild stories about Rakkeed. Three days after he was
+reported here at Konkrook, he was reported at Skilk, five thousand
+miles away, said to be having an audience with King Firkked."</p>
+
+<p>"No mystery to that," von Schlichten said. "He travels on our ships,
+in disguise, coolie-class, on the geek-deck."</p>
+
+<p>"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 be
+left unlocked, by carelessness, and he could blunder overboard at
+about five thousand feet." He watched Harrington make a deceptively
+pointless-looking move. "Sid, this damn dog business worries me."</p>
+
+<p>"Worries me, too. I'm fond of that mutt, and God only knows what sort
+of stuff he's been getting to eat. And I hate to think of why those
+geeks stole him, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, at risk of seeming heartless, I'm not so much worried for
+Stalin as I am about why Keeluk was hiding him, and why he was willing
+to murder the only two Terrans in Konkrook who trust him, to prevent
+our finding out that he had him."</p>
+
+<p>"A Mr. Keeluk, a clergyman," von Schlichten quoted. He chain-lit
+another cigarette and stubbed out the old one. "Maybe the Rev. Keeluk
+wanted Stalin for sacramental purposes."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Blount looked up sharply. "Ritual killing?" he asked. "Or sympathetic
+magic?"</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten shrugged. "Take your choice. Maybe Rakkeed wanted the
+dog, to kill before a congregation of his followers, killing us by
+proxy, or in effigy. Or maybe they think we worship Stalin, and
+getting control of him would give them power over us. I wish we knew a
+little more about Ulleran psychology."</p>
+
+<p>That wasn't the first time he'd made that wish. Even if sex weren't
+the paramount psychological factor the ancient Freudians believed, it
+was an extremely important one, and on Uller most of the fundamental
+terms of Terran psychology were meaningless. At the same time, the
+average Ulleran probably had complexes and neuroses that would have
+had Freud talking to himself, and they certainly indulged in practices
+that would have even stood Krafft-Ebing's hair on end.</p>
+
+<p>"One thing," Blount said. "It doesn't take any Ulleran psychologist to
+know that about eighty percent of them hate us poisonously."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, rubbish!" Harrington blew the exclamation out around his
+pipe-stem with a gush of smoke. "A few fanatics hate us, and a few
+merchants who lost money when we replaced this primitive barter
+economy of theirs, but nine-tenths of them have benefited enormously
+from us, and continue to benefit...."</p>
+
+<p>"And hate us more deeply with each new benefit," Blount added. "They
+resent everything we've done for them."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, this spaceport proposition of King Orgzild of Keegark looks like
+it, now doesn't it?" Harrington retorted. "He hates and resents us so
+much that he's offered us a spaceport at his city...."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What's it going to cost him?" Blount asked. "He furnishes the
+land&mdash;sequestered from the estate of some noble he executed for
+treason&mdash;and the labor&mdash;all forced. We furnish the structural steel,
+the machine-equipment, the engineering. We get a spaceport we don't
+really need, and he gets all the business it'll bring to Keegark.
+Considering the fact that Rakkeed is a welcome guest at his embassy
+here, and at the Royal Palace at Keegark, I'm beginning to wonder if
+he isn't fomenting trouble for us here at Konkrook to make us willing
+to move our main base to his city."</p>
+
+<p>He made a move. Instantly, Harrington slashed out from the middle of
+the board with one of his heavy-duty, all-purpose pieces and took a
+piece, then moved again.</p>
+
+<p>"Now look whose king's threatened!" he crowed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I see." Blount brought a piece clockwise around the board and
+took the threatening piece, then moved again. "I hope you see whose
+king's threatened, now."</p>
+
+<p>Harrington swore, reached out to move a piece, and then jerked his
+hand back as though the piece were radioactive. For a while, he sat
+puffing his pipe and staring at the board.</p>
+
+<p>"In fact, Orgzild's so sure that we're going to accept his offer that
+he's started building two new power-reactors, to handle the additional
+power-demand that'll result from the increased business," Blount
+continued.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's he getting the plutonium?" von Schlichten asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Where can he get it?" Harrington replied. "He just bought four tons
+of it from us, off the <i>City of Pretoria</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a hell of a lot of plutonium," Blount said. "I wonder if he
+mightn't have some idea of what else<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> plutonium can be used for,
+beside generating power."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, God, I hope not!" Harrington exclaimed. "You're going to get me
+started seeing burglars under the bed, next...."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe there are burglars," Blount said, pointing with his
+cigarette-holder to Harrington's threatened king. "Can't you do
+something about that, Sid?" Then he turned to von Schlichten. "Before
+we get off the subject, how about those letters the Rev. Keeluk gave
+to the Quinton girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"All addressed to Skilkans known to be Rakkeed disciples and rabidly
+anti-Terran," von Schlichten replied. "We radioed the list to Skilk;
+Colonel Cheng-Li, our intelligence man there, teleprinted us back a
+lot of material on them that looks like the Newgate Calendar. We
+turned the letters themselves over to Doc Petrie, the Ulleran
+philology sharp, who is a pretty fair cryptanalyst. He couldn't find
+any indications of cipher, but there was a lot of gossip about
+Keeluk's friends and parishioners which might have arbitrary
+code-meanings. I'm going to explain the situation to Miss Quinton, and
+advise her to have nothing to do with any of the people Keeluk gave
+her letters to."</p>
+
+<p>Harrington had gotten his king temporarily out of danger, losing a
+piece doing it.</p>
+
+<p>"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 of
+bitches in their book, and anything we say's sure to be a Hitler-sized
+lie."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they're not as bad as all that. I never met the girl before
+today, but old Mohammed Ferriera's a decent bloke. And their
+association's really done a lot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> of good. For one thing, they put an
+end to the peonage system on Yggdrasill, and I know what conditions
+were like, there, before they did."</p>
+
+<p>A calculating look came into Harrington's eye. He puffed slowly at his
+pipe and slid a piece from the center toward the sector of the board
+nearest him. Blount whistled softly and made a quick re-arrangement.</p>
+
+<p>"Carlos, did you say she told you she was going to Skilk, in the near
+future?" Harrington asked. "Well, look here; you're going up that way,
+yourself, with that battalion of Kragans, on the <i>Aldebaran</i>. Why
+don't you invite her to make the trip with you? You can be quite
+attractive to young ladies, when you try, and she'll be grateful for
+that rescue this afternoon, which is always a good foundation. Maybe
+you can plant a couple of ideas where they'll do the most good. She's
+only been here for three months&mdash;since the <i>Canberra</i> got in from
+Niflheim. You know and I know and we all know that there are a lot of
+things up there at the polar mines that would look like hell to
+anybody who didn't understand local conditions...."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Miss Quinton's company won't be any particularly heavy cross
+for me to bear," von Schlichten replied. "I won't guarantee anything,
+of course...."</p>
+
+<p>The intercom-speaker on the table whistled several times. Harrington
+swore, laid down his pipe, and got up, brushing ashes from the front
+of his coat. He flipped a switch and spoke into the box.</p>
+
+<p>"Governor," a voice replied out of it, "there's a geek procession just
+landed from a water-barge in front, and is coming up the roadway to
+Company 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 pla<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>toon of riflemen, if you say the last
+syllable quick enough."</p>
+
+<p>"That'll be Gurgurk, coming to tell us how unhappy his Sodden and
+Inebriated Geekship is about that fracas on Seventy-second Street,"
+Harrington said. "The gift-litter will contain the customary
+indemnity, at the current market quotation. Have Gurgurk and party
+admitted, all but the rifle-platoons; give him an honor guard of our
+Kragans, and keep his own gun-toters outside. Take them to the
+Reception Hall, and hold them there till I signal from the Audience
+Hall, and then herd them in."</p>
+
+<p>He came back and made a move. Immediately, Blount took one of his
+pieces, moved again, took another, and made the third move to which he
+was entitled.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll mate you in four moves," he predicted. "Want to play it out,
+before we go down?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure; what's time to a geek? Gurgurk'd think we were worried about
+something if we didn't keep him waiting.... Good Lord! You do have me
+over a barrel, Eric!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III.</h2>
+
+<h3>Four-and-Twenty Geek Heads</h3>
+
+
+<p>Governor-General Sidney Harrington sat on the comfortably upholstered
+bench on the dais of the Audience Hall, flanked by von Schlichten and
+Eric Blount. He didn't look particularly regal, even on that high
+seat&mdash;with his ruddy outdoorsman's face and his ragged gray mustache
+and his old tweed coat spotted with pipe-ashes, he might have been any
+of the dozen-odd country-gentleman neighbors of von Schlichten's
+boyhood in the Argentine. But then, to a Terran, any of the kings of
+Uller 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 an
+Ulleran.</p>
+
+<p>He took the false palate and tongue-clicker, officially designated as
+an "enunciator, Ulleran" and, colloquially, as a geek-speaker, out of
+his coat pocket and shoved it into his mouth. Von Schlichten and
+Blount put in theirs, and Harrington pressed the floor-button with his
+toe. After a brief interval, the wide doors at the other end of the
+hall slid open, and the Konkrookan notables, attended by a dozen
+Company native-officers and a guard of Kragan Rifles, entered. The
+honor-guard advanced in two columns; between them marched an unclad
+and heavily armed native carrying an ornate spear with a three-foot
+blade upright in front of him with all four hands. It was the
+Konkrookan Spear of State; it represented the proxy-pres<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>ence of King
+Jaikark. Behind it stalked Gurgurk, the Konkrookan equivalent of Prime
+Minister or Grand Vizier; he wore a gold helmet and a thing like a
+string-vest made of gold wire, and carried a long sword with a
+two-hand grip, a pair of Terran automatics built for a hand with six
+four-knuckled fingers, and a pair of matched daggers. He was
+considerably past the Ulleran prime of life&mdash;seventy or eighty, to
+judge from the worn appearance of his opal teeth, the color of his
+skin, and the predominantly reddish tint of his quartz-speckles. An
+immature Ulleran would be a very light gray, white under the arms, and
+his quartz-specks would run from white to pale yellow. The retinue of
+nobles behind Gurgurk ran through the whole spectrum, from a
+princeling who was almost oyster-gray to old Ghroghrank, the Keegarkan
+Ambassador, who was even blacker and more red-speckled than Gurgurk.
+All of them carried about as much ironmongery as the Prime
+Minister&mdash;the pistols were all Terran, and the swords and daggers were
+mostly made either on Terra or at the Terran-operated steel-works on
+Volund.</p>
+
+<p>Four slaves brought up the rear carrying an ornately inlaid box on
+poles. When the spear-bearer reached the exact middle of the hall, he
+halted and grounded his regalia-weapon with a thump. Gurgurk came up
+and halted a couple of paces behind and to the left of the spear, and
+all the other nobles drew up in two curved lines some ten paces to the
+rear, with considerable pushing and jostling and a <i>sotto voce</i>
+argument, with overtones of weapon-fingering, about precedence. All,
+that is, but Ghroghrank and another noble, who came up and planted
+themselves beside Gurgurk. Von Schlichten regarded the assemblage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
+sourly through his monocle. Maybe Sid Harrington <i>did</i> look regal,
+after all.</p>
+
+<p>The Governor-General rose slowly and descended from the dais,
+advancing to within ten paces of the Spear, von Schlichten and Blount
+accompanying him. Out of the corner of his eye, von Schlichten watched
+a couple of Kragan mercenaries with fifty-shot machine-rifles move
+unobtrusively to positions from whence they could, if necessary, spray
+the visitors with bullets without endangering the Terrans.</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome, Gurgurk," Harrington gibbered through his false palate. "The
+Company is honored by this visit."</p>
+
+<p>"I come in the name of my royal master, His Sublime and Ineffable
+Majesty, Jaikark the Seventeenth, King of Konkrook and of all the
+lands of the Konk Isthmus," Gurgurk squeaked and clicked. "I have the
+honor to bring with me the Lord Ghroghrank, Ambassador of King Orgzild
+of Keegark to the court of my royal master."</p>
+
+<p>"And I," Ghroghrank said, after being suitably welcomed, "am honored
+to be accompanied by Prince Gorkrink, special envoy from my master,
+his Royal and Imperial Majesty King Orgzild, who is in your city to
+receive the shipment of power-metal my royal master has been honored
+to be permitted to purchase from the Company."</p>
+
+<p>More protocol about welcoming Gorkrink. Then Gurgurk cleared his
+throat with a series of barking sounds.</p>
+
+<p>"My royal master, His Sublime and Ineffable Majesty, is prostrated
+with grief," he stated solemnly. "Were his sorrow not so overwhelming,
+he would have come in His Own Sacred Person to express the pain and
+shame which he feels that people of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> Company should be set upon
+and endangered in the streets of the royal city."</p>
+
+<p>If he weren't doped to the ears, von Schlichten substituted mentally.
+There was a native drug which had, on its users, the combined effects
+of hashish, heroin and yohimbine; Jaikark and all his court circle
+were addicts. He probably hadn't even heard of the riot.</p>
+
+<p>"The soldiers of His Sublime and Ineffable Majesty came most promptly
+to the aid of the troops of the Company, did they not, General von
+Schlichten?" Harrington asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Within minutes, Your Excellency," von Schlichten replied gravely.
+"Their promptness, valor, and efficiency were most exemplary."</p>
+
+<p>Gurgurk spoke at length, expressing himself as delighted, on behalf of
+his royal master, at hearing such high praise from so distinguished a
+soldier. Eric Blount then contributed a short speech, beseeching the
+gods that the deep and beautiful friendship existing between the
+Chartered Uller Company and His Sublime etcetera would continue
+unimpaired, and that His Sublime etcetera would enjoy long life and
+peaceful reign, managing, by a trick of Konkrookan grammar, to imply
+that the second would be conditional upon the first. The Keegarkan
+Ambassador then spoke his piece, expressing on behalf of King Orgzild
+the deepest regret that the people of the Company should be so
+molested, and managing to hint that things like that simply didn't
+happen at Keegark.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince Gorkrink then spoke briefly, in sympathy for the great and
+good friend of all Ulleran peoples, Mohammed Ferriera, who had been
+injured, and hoping that he would soon enjoy full health again. He
+also managed to convey King Orgzild's pleasure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> at having obtained the
+plutonium. Von Schlichten noticed that a few of his more recent
+quartz-specks were slightly greenish in tinge, a sure sign that he
+had, not long ago, been exposed to the fluorine-tainted air which men
+and geeks alike breathed on Niflheim. When a geek prince hired out as
+a laborer for a year on Niflheim, he did so for only one purpose&mdash;to
+learn Terran technologies.</p>
+
+<p>Gurgurk then announced that so enormous a crime against the friends of
+His Sublime etcetera had not been allowed to go unpunished, signaling
+behind him with one of his lower hands for the box to be brought
+forward. The slaves carried it to the front, set it down, and opened
+it, taking from it a rug which they spread on the floor. On this, from
+the box, they placed twenty-four newly severed opal-grinning heads, in
+four neat rows. They had all been freshly scrubbed and polished, but
+they still smelled like crushed cockroaches.</p>
+
+<p>The three Terrans looked at them gravely. A double-dozen heads was
+standard payment for an attack in which no Terran had been killed.
+Ostensibly, they were the heads of the ringleaders: in practice, they
+were usually lopped from the first two-dozen prisoners or over-age
+slaves at hand, without regard for whether the victims had even heard
+of the crime which they were expiating. If the Extraterrestrial's
+Rights Association were really serious about the rights of these
+geeks, they'd advocate booting out all these native princes and
+turning the whole planet over to the Company. That had been the Terran
+Federation's idea, from the beginning; why else give the Company's
+chief representative the title of Governor-General?</p>
+
+<p>There was another long speech from Gurgurk, with the nobles behind him
+murmuring antiphonal agree<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>ment&mdash;standard procedure, for which there
+was a standard pun, geek chorus&mdash;and a speech of response from Sid
+Harrington. Standing stiffly through the whole rigamarole, von
+Schlichten waited for it to end, as finally it did.</p>
+
+<p>They walked back from the door, whence they had escorted the
+delegation, and stood looking down at the saurian heads on the rug.
+Harrington raised his voice and called to a Kragan sergeant whose
+chevrons were painted on all four arms.</p>
+
+<p>"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're
+welcome to them."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a moment," von Schlichten told the sergeant. Then he disgorged
+and pouched his geek-speaker. "See that head, there?" he asked,
+rolling it over with his toe. "I killed that geek, myself, with my
+pistol, while Them and Hid were getting Ferriera into the car. Miss
+Quinton killed that one with the bolo; see where she chopped him on
+the 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 walked
+around the rug, turning heads over with his foot. "This was cut-rate
+head-payment; they just slashed off two-dozen heads at the scene of
+the riot. I don't like this butchery of worn-out slaves and petty
+thieves any better than anybody else, but this I don't like either.
+Six months ago, Gurgurk wouldn't have tried to pull anything like
+this. Now he's laughing up his non-existent sleeve at us."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I've been preaching, all along," Eric Blount took up
+after him. "These geeks need having the fear of Terra thrown into
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nonsense, Eric; you're just as bad as Carlos,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> here!" Harrington
+tut-tutted. "Next, you'll be saying that we ought to depose Jaikark
+and take control ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"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 of
+Jaikark's like fast neutrons through toilet-paper."</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" Harrington exploded. "Don't let me hear that kind of talk
+again! We're not <i>conquistadores</i>; we're employees of a business
+concern, here to make money honestly, by exchanging goods and services
+with these people...."</p>
+
+<p>He turned and walked away, out of the Audience Hall, leaving von
+Schlichten and Blount to watch the removal of the geek-heads.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, I went a little too far," von Schlichten confessed. "Or too
+fast, rather. He's got to be conditioned to accept that idea."</p>
+
+<p>"We can't go too slowly, either," Blount replied. "If we wait for him
+to change his mind, it'll be the same as waiting for him to retire.
+And that'll be waiting too long."</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten nodded seriously. "Did you notice the green specks in
+the hide of that Prince Gorkrink?" he asked. "He's just come back from
+Niflheim. Not on the <i>Pretoria</i>, I don't think. Probably on the
+<i>Canberra</i>, three months ago."</p>
+
+<p>"And he's here to get that plutonium, and ship it to Keegark on the
+<i>Oom Paul Kruger</i>," Blount considered. "I wonder just what he learned,
+on Niflheim."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder just what's going on at Keegark," von Schlichten said.
+"Orgzild's pulled down a regular First-Century-model iron curtain. You
+know, four of our best native Intelligence operatives have been
+mur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>dered in Keegark in the last three months, and six more have just
+vanished there."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm going there in a few days, myself, to talk to Orgzild about
+this spaceport deal," Blount said. "I'll have a talk with Hendrik
+Lemoyne and MacKinnon. And I'll see what I can find out for myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let's go have a drink," von Schlichten suggested, consulting
+his watch. "About time for a cocktail."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>If You Read It in Stanley-Browne</h3>
+
+
+<p>Von Schlichten and Blount entered the bar together&mdash;the Broadway Room,
+decorated in gleaming plastics and chromium in enthusiastic if
+slightly 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, von
+Schlichten dialed the cocktail they had decided upon and inserted his
+key to charge the drinks to his account, filling a four-portion jug.</p>
+
+<p>As they turned away, they almost collided with Hideyoshi O'Leary and
+Paula Quinton. The girl wore a long-sleeved gown to conceal a bandage
+on her right wrist, and her face was rather heavily powdered in spots;
+otherwise she looked none the worse for recent experiences.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you seem to have gotten yourself repaired, Miss Quinton," he
+greeted her. "Feel better, now?... Miss Quinton, this is
+Lieutenant-Governor Blount. Eric, Miss Paula Quinton."</p>
+
+<p>"Delighted, Miss Quinton," Blount said. "Carlos tells us he found you
+standing over poor Mohammed Ferriera, fighting like a commando. How is
+Mohammed, by the way? No danger, I hope; we all like him."</p>
+
+<p>Mohammed Ferriera was still unconscious, the girl<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> reported; he had a
+minor concussion, but the medics were not greatly disturbed, and
+expected him to be fully recovered in a few weeks. Von Schlichten
+invited her and her escort to join him and Blount. Colonel O'Leary was
+carrying a cocktail jug and a couple of glasses; finding a table out
+of the worst of the noise, they all sat down together.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you think it's a joke, our being nearly murdered by the
+people we came to help," Paula began, a trifle defensively.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a very funny joke," von Schlichten told her. "It's been played on
+us till it's lost its humor."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You call them that, too?" she asked, as though disappointed in him.
+"Maybe if you stopped calling them geeks, they wouldn't resent you the
+way they do. You know, that's a nasty name; in the First Century
+Pre-Atomic, it designated a degraded person who performed some sort of
+revolting public exhibition...."</p>
+
+<p>"Biting off live chickens' heads, in a sideshow wild-man act,"
+Hideyoshi O'Leary supplied. "When you get up north, watch how the
+peasants kill these little things like six-legged iguanas that they
+raise for food."</p>
+
+<p>"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. <i>Geek-geek-geek.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"As far as that goes, you know what the geek name for a Terran is?"
+Blount asked. "<i>Suddabit.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>She looked puzzled for a moment, then slipped in her enunciator. Even
+in the absence of any native, she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> used her handkerchief to mask the
+act.</p>
+
+<p>"Suddabit," she said, distinctly. "Sud-da-a-bit." Taking out the
+geek-speaker, she put it away. "Why, that's exactly how they'd
+pronounce it!"</p>
+
+<p>"And don't tell me you haven't heard it before," O'Leary said. "The
+geeks were screaming it at you, over on Seventy-second Street, this
+afternoon. <i>Znidd suddabit</i>; kill the Terrans. That's Rakkeed the
+Prophet's whole gospel."</p>
+
+<p>"So you see," Eric Blount rammed home the moral, "this is just another
+case of nobody with any right to call anybody else's kettle black....
+Cigarette?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you." She leaned toward the lighter-flame O'Leary had snapped
+into being. "I suspect that of being a principle you'd like me to bear
+in mind at the polar mines, when I see, let's say, some laborer being
+beaten by a couple of overseers with three foot lengths of
+three-quarter-inch steel cable."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you could also remember that a native's skin is about half an
+inch thick, and a good deal tougher than a human's," von Schlichten
+told her. "And it wouldn't hurt any if you found out how these
+laborers are treated at home. Mostly they're serfs hired from the big
+landowners; it's a fact you can easily verify that permission to join
+the labor-companies at the polar mines is regarded as a privilege,
+granted as a reward or denied as a punishment. And most of the geek
+landowners are bitterly critical of the way we treat our labor at the
+mines; they claim we make them dissatisfied with the treatment they
+get at home."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, they're always glad to have the peasants taken off their
+hands during a slack agricultural season," Blount added, "and we train
+workers to handle contragravity power-equipment. I won't deny that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
+there's a lot of unnecessary brutality on the part of the native
+foremen and overseers, which we're trying, gradually, to eliminate.
+You'll have to remember, though, that we're dealing with a naturally
+brutal race."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, mistreatment of native labor is always blamed on other
+natives, never on the gentle and kindly Terrans," she replied. "That's
+been SOP on every planet our Association's had any experience with."</p>
+
+<p>"Now look; you just came here from Niflheim," von Schlichten objected.
+"The Company employs quite a few geeks there; how much brutality did
+you run into there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I must admit, the Ullerans who work there are very well
+treated. Except that I don't think it's right to employ any people
+with silicone body-tissues where they're going to breathe
+fluorine-tainted air."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody ought to be employed on that planet!" Hideyoshi O'Leary
+declared. "I did a two-year hitch there, when I was first commissioned
+in the Company service."</p>
+
+<p>"I put in two years there, too," Blount supported him. "And I might
+add that that's a year longer than any Ulleran native is ever allowed
+to spend on Niflheim. You know what the setup is, there, don't you?
+The Terran Federation Space Navy discovered and explored both Uller
+and Niflheim, which made both planets public domain. The Company was
+originally formed to exploit Uller alone, but the Federation insisted
+that both planets would have to be franchised to the same company.
+They wanted Niflheim exploited, mainly because of the uranium-deposits
+there. As it turned out, the Company's making as much money out of
+Niflheim as we are out of Uller."</p>
+
+<p>"What you miss is this," von Schlichten pointed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> out. "On Niflheim,
+there are about a thousand Terrans, and not more than five hundred
+geeks, all employed on construction-work and in the mines, on the
+planet itself, working directly under Terran supervision. We use them
+because they have four hands, and in the power-driven contragravity
+armor that's necessary there, they can manipulate more controls and do
+more 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 do
+supervisory work. So we have to use native foremen, and they're guilty
+of what mistreatment the workers suffer."</p>
+
+<p>"And remember, too," O'Leary added, "work at the polar mines can only
+go on for about two months out of the year&mdash;mid-September to
+mid-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."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, why do you work mines at the poles? Aren't there mineral
+deposits in places where you can work all year 'round?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not as rich, or as accessible," Blount said. "You know what the
+seasons are like, at the poles of this planet. The temperature will
+range from about two-fifty Fahrenheit in mid-summer to a hundred and
+fifty below in winter. There's the most intense sort of thermal
+erosion you can imagine&mdash;the ice-cap melts in the spring to a sea,
+which boils away completely by the middle of the summer. There will be
+violent circular storms of hot wind, blowing away the light sand and
+dust and leaving the heavier particles of metallic ores and metals
+behind. Then, when the winds fall, we move in for a couple of months.
+It isn't really<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> mining, or even quarrying; we just scoop up ore from
+the surface, load it onto ore-boats, and fly it down to Skilk and
+Krink and Grank, where it's smelted through the winter. The natives
+run the smelters; use the heat to thaw frozen food for themselves and
+their livestock while they're melting the ore. In the north,
+metallurgy and food-preparation have always been combined that way."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if you think the natives who work at the mines feel themselves
+ill-treated, you might propose closing them down entirely and see what
+the native reaction would be," von Schlichten told her. "Independently
+hired free workers can make themselves rich, by native standards, in a
+couple of seasons; many of the serfs pick up enough money from us in
+incentive-pay to buy their freedom after one season."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if the Company's doing so much good on this planet, how is it
+that this native, Rakkeed, the one you call the Mad Prophet, is able
+to find such a following?" Paula demanded. "There must be something
+wrong somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a fair question," Blount replied, inverting a cocktail jug
+over his glass to extract the last few drops. "When we came to Uller,
+we found a culture roughly like that of Europe during the Seventh
+Century Pre-Atomic, or, more closely, like that of Japan before the
+beginning of the First Century P. A. We initiated a technological and
+economic revolution here, and such revolutions have their casualties,
+too. A number of classes and groups got squeezed pretty badly, like
+the horse-breeders and harness-manufacturers on Terra by the invention
+of the automobile, or the coal and hydroelectric interests when direct
+conversion of nuclear energy to electric current was developed, or
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> railroads and steamship lines at the time of the discovery of the
+contragravity-field. Naturally, there's a lot of ill-feeling on the
+part of merchants and artisans who weren't able or willing to adapt
+themselves to changing conditions; they're all backing Rakkeed and
+yelling '<i>Znidd suddabit!</i>' now. You know, it's a shame that geek
+messiah isn't a smart crook, instead of an honest fanatic; he could
+take in the equivalent of a couple of million sols a year off the
+North Uller merchants and the Equatorial Zone shipowners. But it is a
+fact, which not even Rakkeed can successfully deny, that we've raised
+the general living standard of this planet by about two hundred
+percent."</p>
+
+<p>"Rakkeed is a Zirk," von Schlichten said. "They're the nomads who hire
+out to the northern merchants as caravan-drivers, and also prey, or
+used to prey, on the caravans as brigands. Since our air-freighters
+got into operation, neither caravan-driving nor caravan-raiding has
+been a paying business, and our air-patrols have made caravan-raiding
+suicidal as well. So the Zirks don't like us. The only thing they know
+or are willing to learn is handling these six-legged riding-and
+pack-animals we call hipposaurs. We employ a few of them as cavalry,
+and a few more of them work as the local equivalent of <i>gauchos</i>, and
+the rest just sit around and listen to Rakkeed's sermons."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"The merchants in the north don't like us; beside spoiling the
+caravan-trade, we're spoiling their local business, because the
+land-owning barons, who used to deal with them, are now dealing
+directly with us.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> At Skilk, King Firkked's afraid his feudal nobility
+is going to try to force a Runnymede on him, so he's been currying
+favor with the urban merchants; that makes him as pro-Rakkeed and as
+anti-Terran as they are. At Krink, King Jonkvank has the support of
+his barons, but he's afraid of his urban bourgeoisie, and we pay him a
+handsome 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."</p>
+
+<p>"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 as
+bloody-minded an old murderer as you'd care not to meet in a dark
+alley anywhere."</p>
+
+<p>"We can turn our backs on him and not expect a knife between our
+shoulders, anyhow," von Schlichten said. "And we can believe, oh, up
+to eighty percent of what he tells us, and that's sixty percent better
+than any of the other native princes, except King Kankad, of course.
+The Kragans are the only real friends we have on this planet." He
+thought for a moment. "Miss Quinton, are you doing sociographic
+research-work here, in addition to your Ex-Rights work?" he asked.
+"Well, let me advise you to pay some attention to the Kragans. You'll
+only find them treated at any length at all in that compendium of
+misinformation, Willard Stanley-Browne's <i>Short Sociographic History
+of Beta Hydrae II</i>, and ninety percent of what Stanley-Browne says
+about them is completely erroneous."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but they're just a parasite-race on the Terrans," Dr. Paula
+Quinton objected. "You find races like that all through the explored
+galaxy&mdash;pathetic cultural mongrels."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Both men laughed heartily. Colonel O'Leary, returning with the jugs,
+wanted to know what he'd missed. Blount told him.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! She's been reading that thing of Stanley-Browne's," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter with Stanley-Browne?" Paula demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"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 think
+she's run into many Kragans. We ought to take her over and introduce
+her to King Kankad."</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten allowed himself to be smitten by an idea. "By Allah, so
+we 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 cleared
+up here and be ready to leave by 0800 Tuesday? That's four days from
+today."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I could. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm going to Skilk, myself, with the armed troopship
+<i>Aldebaran</i>. We're stopping at King Kankad's Town to pick up a
+battalion of Kragan Rifles for duty at the polar mines, where you're
+going. Suppose we leave here in my command-car, go to Kankad's Town,
+and wait there till the <i>Aldebaran</i> gets in. That would give us about
+two to three hours. If you think the Kragans are 'pathetic cultural
+mongrels,' what you'll see there will open your eyes. And I might add
+that the nearest Stanley-Browne ever came to seeing Kankad's Town was
+from the air, once, at a distance of four miles."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, they live entirely by serving as mercenary soldiers for the
+Uller Company, don't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"More or less. You see, when we came to Uller, they were barbarian
+brigands; had a string of forts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> along caravan-roads and at fords and
+mountain-passes, and levied tolls. They raided into Konkrook and
+Keegark territory, too. Well, we had to break that up. We fought a
+little war with them, beat them rather badly in a couple of
+skirmishes, and then made a deal with them. That was before my time,
+when old Jerry Kirke was Governor-General. He negotiated a treaty with
+their King, bought their rievers'-forts outright, and paid them a
+subsidy to compensate for loss of tolls and raid-spoil, and agreed to
+employ the whole tribe as soldiers. We've taught them a lot&mdash;you'll
+see how much when you visit their town&mdash;but they aren't cultural
+mongrels. You'll like them."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, general, I'll take you up," she said. "But I warn you; if this
+is some scheme to indoctrinate me with the Uller Company's side of the
+case and blind me to unjust exploitation of the natives here, I don't
+propagandize very easily."</p>
+
+<p>"Fair enough, as long as you don't let fear of being propagandized
+blind you to the good we're doing here, or impair your ability to
+observe and draw accurate conclusions. Just stay scientific about it
+and I'll be satisfied. Now, let's take time out for lubrication," he
+said, filling her glass and passing the jug.</p>
+
+<p>Two hours and five cocktails later, they were still at the table, and
+they had taught Paula Quinton some twenty verses of <i>The Heathen
+Geeks, They Wear No Breeks</i>, including the four printable ones.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V.</h2>
+
+<h3>You Can Depend on It It's Wrong</h3>
+
+
+<p>Gongonk Island, with its blue-gray Company buildings, and the Terran
+green of the farms, and the spaceport with its ring of mooring-pylons
+empty since the <i>City of Pretoria</i> had lifted out, two days before,
+for Terra, was dropping away behind. Von Schlichten held his lighter
+for Paula Quinton, then lit his own cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"I was rather horrified, Friday afternoon, at the way you and Colonel
+O'Leary and Mr. Blount were blaspheming against Stanley-Browne," she
+said. "His book is practically the sociographers' Koran for this
+planet. But I've been checking up, since, and I find that everybody
+who's been here any length of time seems to deride it, and it's full
+of the most surprising misstatements. I'm either going to make myself
+famous or get burned at the stake by the Extraterrestrial Sociographic
+Society after I get back to Terra. In the last three months, I've been
+really too busy with Ex-Rights work to do much research, but I'm
+beginning to think there's a great deal in Stanley-Browne's book that
+will have to be reconsidered."</p>
+
+<p>"How'd you get into this, Miss Quinton?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean sociography, or Ex-Rights? Well, my father and my
+grandfather were both extraterrestrial sociographers&mdash;anthropologists
+whose subjects aren't anthropomorphic&mdash;and I majored in sociography
+at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> the University of Montevideo. And I've always been in sympathy
+with extraterrestrial races; one of my great-grandmothers was a
+Freyan."</p>
+
+<p>"The deuce; I'd never have guessed that, as small and dark as you
+are."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, another of my great-grandmothers was Japanese," she replied.
+"The family name's French. I'm also part Spanish, part Russian, part
+Italian, part English ... the usual modern Argentine mixture."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm an Argentino, too. From La Rioja, over along the Sierra de
+Velasco. My family lived there for the past five centuries. They came
+to the Argentine in the Year Three, Atomic Era."</p>
+
+<p>"On account of the Hitler bust-up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I believe the first one, also a General von Schlichten, was what
+was then known as a war-criminal."</p>
+
+<p>"That makes us partners in crime, then," she laughed. "The Quintons
+had to leave France about the same time; they were what was known as
+collaborationists."</p>
+
+<p>"That's probably why the Southern Hemisphere managed to stay out of
+the Third and Fourth World Wars," he considered. "It was full of the
+descendants of people who'd gotten the short end of the Second."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you speak the Kragan language, general?" she asked. "I understand
+it's entirely different from the other Equatorial Ulleran languages."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. That's what gives the Kragans an entirely different semantic
+orientation. For instance, they have nothing like a subject-predicate
+sentence structure. That's why, Stanley-Browne to the contrary
+notwithstanding, they are entirely non-religious. Their language
+hasn't instilled in them a predisposition to think of everything as
+the result of an action performed by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> an agent. And they have no
+definite parts of speech; any word can be used as any part of speech,
+depending on context. Tense is applied to words used as nouns, not
+words used as verbs; there are four tenses&mdash;spatial-temporal present,
+things here-and-now; spatial present and temporal remote, things which
+were 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it's a wonder they haven't developed a Theory of Relativity!"</p>
+
+<p>"They have. It resembles ours about the way the Wright Brothers'
+airplane resembles this aircar, but I was explaining the
+Keene-Gonzales-Dillingham Theory and the older Einstein Theory to King
+Kankad once, and it was beautiful to watch how he picked it up. Half
+the time, he was a jump ahead of me."</p>
+
+<p>The aircar began losing altitude and speed as they came in over
+Kraggork Swamp; the treetops below blended into a level plain of
+yellow-green, pierced by glints of stagnant water underneath and
+broken by an occasional low hillock, sometimes topped by a stockaded
+village.</p>
+
+<p>"Those are the swamp-savages' homes," he told her. "Most of what you
+find in Stanley-Browne about them is fairly accurate. He spent a lot
+of time among them. He never seems to have realized, though, that they
+are living now as they have ever since the first appearance of
+intelligent life on this planet."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean, they're the real aboriginal people of Uller?"</p>
+
+<p>"They and the Jeel cannibals, whom we are doing our best to
+exterminate," he replied. "You see, at one time, the dominant type of
+mobile land-life was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> thing we call a shellosaur, a big thing,
+running from five to fifteen tons, plated all over with silicate
+shell, till it looked like a six-legged pine-cone. Some were
+herbivores and some were carnivores. There are a few left, in remote
+places&mdash;quite a few in the Southern Hemisphere, which we haven't
+explored very much. They were a satisfied life-form. Outside of a
+volcano or an earthquake or an avalanche, nothing could hurt a
+shellosaur but a bigger shellosaur.</p>
+
+<p>"Finally, of course, they grew beyond their sustenance-limit, but in
+the meantime, some of them began specializing on mobility instead of
+armor and began excreting waste-matter instead of turning it to shell.
+Some of these new species got rid of their shell entirely. <i>Parahomo
+sapiens Ulleris</i> is descended from one of these.</p>
+
+<p>"The shellosaurs were still a serious menace, though. The ancestors of
+the present Ulleran, the proto-geeks, when they were at about the Java
+Ape-Man stage of development, took two divergent courses to escape the
+shellosaurs. Some of them took to the swamps, where the shellosaurs
+would sink if they tried to follow. Those savages, down there, are
+still living in the same manner; they never progressed. Others
+encountered problems of survival which had to be overcome by
+invention. They progressed to barbarism, like the people of the
+fishing-villages, and some of them progressed to civilization, like
+the Konkrookans and the Keegarkans.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, there were others who took to the high rocks, where the
+shellosaurs couldn't climb. The Jeels are the primitive, original
+example of that. Most of the North Uller civilizations developed from
+mountaineer-savages, and so did the Zirks and the other northern
+plains nomads."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, how about the Kragans?" Paula asked. "Which were they?"</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten was scanning the horizon ahead. He pulled over a pair
+of fifty-power binoculars on a swinging arm and put them where she
+could use them.</p>
+
+<p>"Right ahead, there; just a little to the left. See that brown-gray
+spot 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's
+Town. You might say, even the same Kankad. The Kragan kings have
+always provided their own heirs, by self-fertilization. That's a
+complicated process, involving simultaneous male and female
+masturbation, but the offspring is an exact duplicate of the single
+parent. The present Kankad speaks of his heir as 'Little Me,' which is
+a fairly accurate way of putting it."</p>
+
+<p>He knew what she was seeing through the glasses&mdash;a massive butte of
+flint, jutting out into the swamp on the end of a sharp ridge, with a
+city on top of it. All the buildings were multi-storied, some piling
+upward from the top and some clinging to the sides. The high
+watchtower at the front now carried a telecast-director, aimed at an
+automatic relay-station on an unmanned orbiter two thousand miles
+off-planet.</p>
+
+<p>"They're either swamp-people who moved up onto that rock, or they're
+mountaineers who came out that far along the ridge and stopped," she
+said. "Which?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody's ever tried to find out. Maybe if you stay on Uller long
+enough, you can. That ought to be good for about eight to ten honorary
+doctorates. And maybe a hundred sols a year in book royalties."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe I'll just do that, general.... What's that, on the little
+island over there?" she asked, shifting the glasses. "A clump of
+flat-roofed buildings. Under a red-and-yellow danger-flag."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That's Dynamite Island; the Kragans have an explosives-plant there.
+They make nitroglycerine, like all the thalassic peoples; they also
+make TNT and catastrophite, and propellants. Learned that from us, of
+course. They also manufacture most of their own firearms, some of them
+pretty extreme&mdash;up to 25-mm for shoulder rifles. Don't ever fire one;
+it'd break every bone in your body."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they that much stronger than us?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head. "Just denser, heavier. They're about equal to us in
+weight-lifting. They can't run, or jump, as well as we can. We often
+come out here for games with the Kragans, where the geeks can't watch
+us. And that reminds me&mdash;you're right about that being a term of
+derogation, because I don't believe I've ever knowingly spoken of a
+Kragan as a geek, and in fact they've picked up the word from us and
+apply it to all non-Kragans. But as I was saying, our baseball team
+has to give theirs a handicap, but their football team can beat the
+daylights out of ours. In a tug-of-war, we have to put two men on our
+end for every one of theirs. But they don't even try to play tennis
+with us."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't the other natives make their own firearms?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, and we're not going to teach them how. The thalassic peoples here
+in the Equatorial Zone are fairly good empirical, teaspoon-measure,
+chemists. Well, no, alchemists. They found out how to make
+nitroglycerine, and use it for blasting and for bombs and mines, and
+they screw little capsules of it on the ends of their arrows. Most of
+their chemistry, such as it is, was learned in trying to prevent
+organic materials, like wood, from petrifying. Up in the north, where
+it gets cold, they learned a lot about metallurgy and ceramics, and
+about forced-draft pneumatics, from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> having to keep fires going all
+winter to thaw frozen food. They make air-rifles, to shoot metal
+darts."</p>
+
+<p>The aircar came in, circling slowly over the town on the big rock, and
+let down on the roof of the castle-like building from which the
+watchtower rose. There were a dozen or so individuals waiting for
+them&mdash;the five Terrans, three men and two women, from the telecast
+station, and the rest Kragans. One of these, dark-skinned but with
+speckles no darker than light amber, armed only with a heavy dagger,
+came over and clapped von Schlichten on the shoulder, grinning
+opalescently.</p>
+
+<p>"Greetings, Von!" he squawked in Kragan, then, seeing Paula, switched
+over to the customary language of the Takkad Sea country. "It makes
+happiness to see you. How long will you stay with us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Till the <i>Aldebaran</i> gets in from Konkrook, to pick up the rifles,"
+von Schlichten replied, in Lingua Terra. He looked at his watch. "Two
+hours and a half ... Kankad, this is Paula Quinton; Paula, King
+Kankad."</p>
+
+<p>He took out his geek-speaker and crammed it into his mouth. Before any
+other race on Uller, that would have been the most shocking sort of
+bad manners, without the token-concealment of the handkerchief. Kankad
+took it as a matter of course. At some length, von Schlichten
+explained the nature of Paula's sociographic work, her connection with
+the Extraterrestrials' Rights Association, and her intention of going
+to the Arctic mines. Kankad nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"You were right," he said. "I wouldn't have understood all that in
+your language. If I had read it, maybe, but not if I heard it." He put
+his upper right hand on Paula's shoulder and uttered a clicking
+approximation of her name. "I make you one of us," he told her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> "You
+must come back, after the work stops at the mines; if you want to
+learn about my people, I'll show you what you want to see, and tell
+you what you want to know. But why not stay here? Why bother about
+those geeks at the mines; the Company treats them much better than
+they deserve. Stay here with us; we will make you happy to be with
+us."</p>
+
+<p>Paula replied slowly: "I thank Kankad, but I must go. Those on Terra
+who sent me here want me to learn for myself how the workers at the
+mines are treated. But I will come back&mdash;in a hundred, a hundred and
+fifty days."</p>
+
+<p>Kankad's opal-jeweled grin widened. "Good! We'll be waiting for you."
+He turned and introduced another Kragan, about his own age, who wore
+the equipment and insignia of a Company native-major and was freshly
+painted with the Company emblem. "This is Kormork. He and I have borne
+young to each other. Kormork, you watch over Paula Quinton." He
+managed, on the second try, to make it more or less recognizable.
+"Bring her back safe. Or else find yourself a good place to hide."</p>
+
+<p>Kankad introduced the rest of his people, and von Schlichten
+introduced the Terrans from the telecast-station. Then Kankad looked
+at the watch he was wearing on his lower left wrist.</p>
+
+<p>"We will have plenty of time, before the ship comes, to show Paula the
+town," he suggested. "Von, you know better than I do what she would
+like to see."</p>
+
+<p>He led the way past a pair of long 90-mm guns to a stone stairway. Von
+Schlichten explained, as they went down, that the guns of King
+Kankad's Town were the only artillery above 75-mm on Uller in
+non-Terran hands. They climbed into an open machine-gun carrier and
+strapped themselves to their seats, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> for two hours King Kankad
+showed her the sights of the town. They visited the school, where
+young Kragans were being taught to read Lingua Terra and studied from
+textbooks printed in Johannesburg and Sydney and Buenos Aires. Kankad
+showed her the repair-shops, where two-score descendants of Kragan
+riever-chieftains were working on contragravity equipment, under the
+supervision of a Scottish-Afrikaner and his Malay-Portuguese wife; the
+small-arms factory, where very respectable copies of Terran rifles and
+pistols and auto-weapons were being turned out; the machine-shop; the
+physics and chemistry labs; the hospital; the ammunition-loading
+plant; 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; the
+printing-shop and book-bindery; the observatory, with a big telescope
+and an ingenious orrery of the Beta Hydrae system; the nuclear-power
+plant, part of the original price for giving up brigandage.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour before the ship from Konkrook was due, they had arrived
+at the airport, where a gang of Kragans were clearing a berth for the
+<i>Aldebaran</i>. From somewhere, Kankad produced two cold bottles of Cape
+Town beer for Paula and von Schlichten, and a bowl of some boiling-hot
+black liquid for himself. Von Schlichten and Paula lit cigarettes;
+between sips of his bubbling hell-brew, Kankad gnawed on the stalk of
+some swamp-plant. Paula seemed as much surprised at Kankad's disregard
+for the eating taboo as she had been at von Schlichten's open flouting
+of the convention of concealment when he had put in his geek-speaker.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the only place on Uller where this happens," von Schlichten
+told her. "Here, or in the field when Terran and Kragan soldiers are
+together. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> aren't any taboos between us and the Kragans."</p>
+
+<p>"No," Kankad said. "We cannot eat each others' food, and because our
+bodies are different, we cannot be the fathers of each others' young.
+But we have been battle-comrades, and worksharers, and we have learned
+from each other, my people more from yours than yours from mine.
+Before you came, my people were like children, shooting arrows at
+little animals on the beach, and climbing among the rocks at
+dare-me-and-I-do, and playing war with toy weapons. But we are growing
+up, and it will not be long before we will stand beside you, as the
+grown son stands beside his parent, and when that day comes, you will
+not be ashamed of us."</p>
+
+<p>It was easy to forget that Kankad had four arms and a rubbery,
+quartz-speckled skin, and a face like a lizard.</p>
+
+<p>"I have always wished that some of your people could come to Terra, to
+study," von Schlichten said. "I was talking about it with Sid
+Harrington, only a short while ago. He thinks it would be a good
+thing, for your people and for mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I want Little Me, when he's old enough to travel, to visit your
+world," Kankad said. "And some of the other young ones. And when
+Little Me is old enough to take over the rule of our people, I would
+like to go to Terra, myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Some day, I am going to return to Terra; I would like to have you
+make the trip with me," von Schlichten said.</p>
+
+<p>"That would be wonderful, Von!" Kankad exclaimed. "I want to see your
+world, before I die. It must be a wonderful place. A world is what its
+people make it, and your people must be able to make anything of your
+world that you would want."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We almost made a lifeless desert, like the poles of Uller, out of our
+world, once," von Schlichten told him. "Four hundred and more years
+ago, we fought great wars among ourselves, with weapons such as I hope
+will never even be thought of on Uller. Our whole Northern Hemisphere,
+where our greatest nations were, was devastated; much of it is
+wasteland to this day. But we put an end to that folly in time; we
+made one nation out of all our people, and swore never to commit such
+crimes again, and then we built the ships that took us out to the
+stars. But I want you to see our world, and some of the other worlds
+that we have visited, I think you would like it."</p>
+
+<p>"I know I would. And with you to tell me what the things I would see
+meant...." Kankad was silent for a moment. Then he spoke again,
+changing the subject abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope Paula will pardon me, but isn't Paula the kind of Terran that
+bears young?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's right, Kankad. I never bore any, yet, but that's the kind of
+Terran I am."</p>
+
+<p>"I like Paula," Kankad said. "She has come all the way from Terra to
+help us, and to learn about us. Of course, the Kragans don't need that
+kind of help, and the geeks, who would stick a knife in her as soon as
+she turned her back on them, don't deserve it. But she wants to learn
+about us, just as I want to learn about Terra. Von, why don't you and
+Paula have young?" he asked. "I think that would be fine. Then, Little
+Paula-Von and Little Me could be friends, long after the three of us
+are dead and gone."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Bad News Came After the Coffee</h3>
+
+
+<p>The last clatter of silverware and dishes ceased as the native
+servants finished clearing the table. There was a remaining clatter of
+cups and saucers; liqueur-glasses tinkled, and an occasional
+cigarette-lighter clicked. At the head table, the voices seemed
+louder.</p>
+
+<p>"... don't like it a millisol's worth," Brigadier-General Barney
+Mordkovitz, the Skilk military CO, was saying to the lady on his
+right. "They're too confounded meek. Nowadays, nobody yells '<i>Znidd
+suddabit!</i>' at you. Nobody sticks all four thumbs in his mouth and
+waves his fingers. Nobody commits nuisance on the sidewalk in front of
+you. They just stand and look at you like a farmer looking at a turkey
+the week before Christmas, and that I don't like!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, bosh!" Jules Keaveney, the Skilk Resident-Agent, at the head of
+the table, exclaimed. "You soldiers are all alike&mdash;begging your
+pardon, General von Schlichten," he nodded in the direction of the
+guest of honor. "If they don't bow and scrape to you and get off the
+sidewalk to let you pass, you say they're insolent and need a lesson.
+If they do, you say they're plotting insurrection."</p>
+
+<p>"What I said," Mordkovitz repeated, "was that I expect a certain
+amount of disorder, and a certain minimum show of hostility toward us
+from some of these geeks, to conform to what I know to be our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+unpopularity with many of them. When I don't find it, I want to know
+why."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm inclined," von Schlichten came to his subordinate's support, "to
+agree. This sudden absence of overt hostility is disquieting. Colonel
+Cheng-Li," he called on the local Intelligence officer and
+Constabulary chief. "This fellow Rakkeed was here, about a month ago.
+Was there any noticeable disorder at that time? Anti-Terran
+demonstrations, attacks on Company property or personnel, shooting at
+aircars, that sort of thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"No more than usual, general. In fact, it was when Rakkeed came here
+that the condition General Mordkovitz was speaking of began to become
+conspicuous. We did catch some of Rakkeed's disciples trying to get in
+among the enlisted men of the Tenth N.U.N.I. and the Fifth Zirk
+Cavalry and promote disaffection. That was reported at the time, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"And acted upon, as far as the civil administration would permit," von
+Schlichten replied. "And I might say that Lieutenant-Governor Blount
+has reported from Keegark, where he is now, that the same unnatural
+absence of hostility exists there."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of course, general," Keaveney said patronizingly. "King Orgzild
+has things under pretty tight control at Keegark. He'd not allow a few
+fanatics to do anything to prejudice these spaceport negotiations."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if the idea back of that spaceport proposition isn't to get
+us concentrated at Keegark, where Orgzild could wipe us all out in one
+surprise blow," somebody down the table suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Orgzild wouldn't be crazy enough to try anything like that,"
+Commander Dirk Prinsloo, of the <i>Aldebaran</i>, declared. "He'd get away
+with it for just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> twelve months&mdash;the time it would take to get the
+news to Terra and for a Federation Space Navy task-force to get here.
+And then, there'd be little bits of radioactive geek floating around
+this system as far out as the orbit of Beta Hydrae VII."</p>
+
+<p>"That's quite true," von Schlichten agreed. "The point is, does
+Orgzild know it? I doubt if he even believes there is a Terra."</p>
+
+<p>"Then where in Space does he think we come from?" Keaveney demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe he thinks Niflheim is our home world," von Schlichten
+replied. "Or, rather, the string of orbiters and artificial satellites
+around Niflheim. Where he thinks Niflheim is, I wouldn't even try to
+guess."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it takes six months for a ship to go between here and Nif,"
+Prinsloo considered. "Because of the hyperdrive effects, the
+experienced time of the voyage, inside the ship, is of the order of
+three weeks. Taking that as the figure, he'd estimate the distance at
+about a quarter-million miles, assuming the velocity as being the
+speed of one of our contragravity-ships here on Uller. I'm assuming he
+doesn't even know there is a hyperdrive."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. After he'd wiped us out, he might even consider the idea of an
+invasion of Niflheim with captured contragravity ships," Hideyoshi
+O'Leary chuckled. "That would be a big laugh&mdash;if any of us were alive,
+then, to do any laughing."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't really believe that, general?" Keaveney asked. His tone was
+still derisive, but under the derision was uncertainty. After all, von
+Schlichten had been on Uller for fifteen years, to his two.</p>
+
+<p>"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 Schlichten
+finished his brandy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> and got out cigarette-case and lighter. "I have
+an idea of the sort of garbled reports these spies of his who spend a
+year on Niflheim as laborers bring back."</p>
+
+<p>"You know the line Rakkeed's been taking, of course," Colonel Cheng-Li
+put in. "He as much as says that Niflheim's our home, and that the
+farms where we raise food here, and those evergreen plantings on Konk
+Isthmus and between here and Grank are the beginning of an attempt to
+drive all native life from this planet and make it over for
+ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"And that savage didn't think an idea like that up for himself; he got
+it from somebody like Orgzild," the black-bearded brigadier-general
+added. "You know, the main base off Niflheim is practically
+self-supporting, with hydroponic-gardens and animal-tissue culture
+vats. And it's enough bigger than one of the <i>City</i> ships to pass for
+a little world. Yes, somebody like Orgzild, or King Firkked here,
+could easily pick up the idea that that's our home planet."</p>
+
+<p>"But King Kankad was talking about...." Paula Quinton began.</p>
+
+<p>"We were speaking of geeks, not Kragans." Von Schlichten lit his
+cigarette and held his lighter for hers. "You saw that big Beta Hydrae
+orrery at Kankad's observatory. Well, there's quite a little story
+about that. You know, it's generally realized by the natives here that
+Uller is a globe. The North Zirks have ridden all the way around it,
+on hipposaur-back, in the high latitudes, and the thalassic peoples at
+the Equator have sailed all the five equatorial seas and portaged all
+the isthmuses between. But, of course, Uller is the center of the
+universe; the sun travels around it, on a rather complicated
+double-spiral track. As a theory, it explains most of what they're
+able to observe, and any minor effects that don't conform to it are
+just ignored.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> They have a model, a most ingenious affair run by
+clockwork, at the University of Konkrook, to show the apparent
+movement and position of Beta Hydrae in the sky; it does so fairly
+accurately.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, some of our astronomers constructed this orrery, and exhibited
+it to a gathering of the leading native scholars, who are also the
+high-priests of the local religion. Sort of combined Academy of Arts
+and Sciences and College of Cardinals. They almost were massacred. As
+soon as the assembled pundits saw this thing and grasped its meaning,
+they began geeking and skreeking and yorking and squawking and
+brandishing knives&mdash;it was blasphemous, and sacrilegious, and
+undermined the Faith, and invalidated the whole logic-system.</p>
+
+<p>"I was brigadier-general, in command of Konkrook military district,
+then&mdash;the post Them M'zangwe has now. When I got a riot-call from the
+University, I hustled around with a company of Kragans, and we cleared
+the hall with the bayonet and ran the reverend professors out onto the
+campus, and after we got things in hand, the Kragans crowded around
+the orrery, trying to set it up to show the existing position of the
+planet relative to the primary and figure out the theory back of it.
+They were very much interested; some of them must have sent word home
+about 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's
+one of his most cherished possessions, but the Konkrook pundits bite
+all four thumbs and wave their fingers every time they think of it."
+He warmed his coffee from a controlled-temperature pot. "You can't use
+Kragan thinking on any subject as a criterion of what somebody like
+Orgzild's opinions will be."</p>
+
+<p>"I never could understand the admiration some of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> you military people
+have for those cutthroats," Keaveney declared. "Oh, yes, I can. You
+like them because they do your dirty work for you."</p>
+
+<p>"He reads Stanley-Browne, too, I'll bet," Hideyoshi O'Leary said.
+"Miss Quinton, how did you like your visit to Kankad's Town? Still
+think the Kragans are cultural mongrels?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, they're wonderful! I never expected anything like it. They just
+seem to have picked up everything they could from us, and then gone on
+from there to develop a culture of their own with our techniques. For
+instance, those big guns, the ones they call the Ridge Battery, that
+they built for themselves. They aren't copies of Terran guns. They
+don't look like our work, or give you the feel our work would. And
+that telescope at the observatory," she continued. "Did they build
+that, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, all we furnished was a couple of textbooks on lens-grinding and
+telescope-design, and a book on optics. You see, when we made that
+deal with them, they realized that we weren't any better fighters than
+they were; we just had better weapons. To have the same kind of
+weapons, they'd have to learn to make them, and once they began
+studying technology, they found that they had to study science.
+Weapon-making was the entering-wedge; after that, they found that they
+could use the same skills to make anything else they wanted. Give them
+another century or so and they'll be one of the great races of the
+galaxy."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and it's a good thing they're our friends, too," Mordkovitz
+added. "I'm only sorry there are so few of them, and so many of the
+geeks."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the Company ought to let us stockpile nuclear weapons here, just
+to be on the safe side," another officer, farther down the table,
+said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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 in
+among the convicts to carry firearms. If somebody like Orgzild got
+hold of a nuclear bomb, even a little old First-Century H-bomb, he
+could use it for a model and construct a hundred like it, with all the
+plutonium we've been handing out for power reactors. And there are too
+few of us, and we're concentrated in too few places, to last long if
+that happened. What this planet needs, though, is a visit by a
+fifty-odd-ship task-force of the Space Navy, just to show the geeks
+what we have back of us. After a show like that, there'd be a lot less
+<i>znidd suddabit</i> around here."</p>
+
+<p>"General, I deplore that sort of talk," Keaveney said. "I hear too
+much of this mailed-fist-and-rattling-saber stuff from some of the
+junior officers here, without your giving countenance and
+encouragement to it. We're here to earn dividends for the stockholders
+of the Uller Company, and we can only do that by gaining the
+friendship, respect and confidence of the natives...."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Keaveney," Paula Quinton spoke up. "I doubt if even you would
+seriously accuse the Extraterrestrials' Rights Association of favoring
+what you call a mailed-fist-and-rattling-saber policy. We've done
+everything in our power to help these people, and if anybody should
+have their friendship, we should. Well, only five days ago, in
+Konkrook, Mr. Mohammed Ferriera and I were attacked by a mob, our
+native aircar driver was murdered, and if it hadn't been for General
+von Schlichten and his soldiers, we'd have lost our own lives. Mr.
+Ferriera is still hospitalized as a result of injuries he received. It
+seems that General von Schlichten and his Kragans aren't trying to
+get<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> friendship and confidence; they're willing to settle for respect,
+in the only way they can get it&mdash;by hitting harder and quicker than
+the geeks can."</p>
+
+<p>Somebody down the table&mdash;one of the military, of course&mdash;said, "Hear,
+hear!" Von Schlichten came as close as a man wearing a monocle can to
+winking at Paula. Good girl, he thought; she's started playing on the
+Army team!</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of course...." Keaveney began. Then he stopped, as a Terran
+sergeant came up to the table and bent over Barney Mordkovitz'
+shoulder, whispering urgently. The black-bearded brigadier rose
+immediately, taking his belt from the back of his chair and putting it
+on. Motioning the sergeant to accompany him, he spoke briefly to
+Keaveney and then came around the table to where von Schlichten sat,
+the Resident-Agent accompanying him.</p>
+
+<p>"Message just came in from Konkrook, general," he said softly. "Sid
+Harrington's dead."</p>
+
+<p>It took von Schlichten all of a second to grasp what had been said.
+"Good God! When? How?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here's all we know, sir," the sergeant said, giving him a radioprint
+slip. "Came in ten minutes ago."</p>
+
+<p>It was an all-station priority telecast. Governor-General Harrington
+had died suddenly, in his room, at 2210; there were no details. He
+glanced at his watch; it was 2243. Konkrook and Skilk were in the same
+time-zone; that was fast work. He handed the slip to Mordkovitz, who
+gave it to Keaveney.</p>
+
+<p>"You from the telecast station, sergeant?" he asked. "All right, let's
+go."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute, general." Keaveney put out a hand to detain him as he
+took his belt and put it on. "How about this?" He gestured nervously
+with the radioprint slip.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Get up and make an announcement, now," von Schlichten told him,
+fastening the buckle and hitching his pistol and survival-kit into
+place. "It'll be out all over the planet in half an hour. Never hold
+news out unnecessarily." He stubbed out his cigarette. "Come on,
+sergeant."</p>
+
+<p>As he hurried from the banquet-room, he could hear Keaveney tapping on
+his wine-glass.</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody, please! Let me have your attention! There has just come in
+a piece of the most tragic news...."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Bismillah! How Dumb Can We Get?</h3>
+
+
+<p>The lights had come on inside the semicircular and now open
+storm-porch of Company House, but it was still daylight outside. The
+sky above the mountain to the west was fading from crimson to
+burnt-orange, and a couple of the brighter stars were winking into
+visibility. Von Schlichten and the sergeant hurried a hundred yards
+down the street between low, thick-walled office buildings to the
+telecast station, next to the Administration Building.</p>
+
+<p>A woman captain met him just inside the door of the big soundproofed
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"We have a wavelength open to Konkrook, general," she said. "In booth
+three."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded. "Thank you, captain.... We've all lost a true friend,
+haven't we?"</p>
+
+<p>Another girl, a tech-sergeant, was in the booth; on the screen was the
+image of a third young woman, a lieutenant, at Konkrook station. The
+sergeant rose and started to leave the booth.</p>
+
+<p>"Stick around, sergeant," von Schlichten told her. "I'll want you to
+take over when I'm through." He sat down in front of the combination
+visiscreen and pickup. "Now, lieutenant, just what happened?" he
+asked. "How did he die?"</p>
+
+<p>"We think it was poison, general. General M'zangwe has ordered autopsy
+and chemical analysis.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> If you can wait about ten minutes, he'll be
+able to talk to you, himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Call him. In the meantime, give me everything you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the governor decided to go to bed early; he was going hunting
+in the morning. I suppose you know his usual routine?"</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten nodded. Harrington would have taken a shower, put on
+his dressing-gown, and then sat down at his desk, lighted his pipe,
+poured a drink of Terran bourbon, and begun to write his diary.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, at 2210, give or take a couple of minutes, the Kragan
+guard-sergeant on that floor heard ten pistol-shots, as fast as they
+could 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 Governor
+Harrington on the floor, wearing only his gown, holding an empty
+pistol. He was in convulsions, frothing at the mouth, in horrible
+pain. Evidently he'd fired his pistol, which he kept on his desk, to
+call help; all the bullets had gone into the ceiling. The sergeant
+punched the emergency button, beside the bed, and reported, then tried
+to help the governor, but it was too late. One of the medics got there
+in five minutes, just as he was dying. He'd written his diary up to
+noon of today, and broken off in the middle of a word. There was a
+bottle and an overturned glass on his desk. The Constabulary got there
+a few minutes later, and then Brigadier-General M'zangwe took charge.
+A white rat, given fifteen drops from the whiskey-bottle, died with
+the same symptoms in about ninety seconds."</p>
+
+<p>"Who had access to the whiskey-bottle?"</p>
+
+<p>"A geek servant, who takes care of the room. He was caught, an hour
+earlier, trying to slip off the island<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> without a pass; they were
+holding him at the guardhouse when Governor Harrington died. He's now
+being questioned by the Kragans." The girl's face was bleakly
+remorseless. "I hope they do plenty to him!"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope they don't kill him before he talks."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a moment, general; we have General M'zangwe, now," the girl
+said. "I'll switch you over."</p>
+
+<p>The screen broke into a kaleidoscopic jumble of color, then cleared;
+the chocolate-brown face of Themistocles M'zangwe was looking out of
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard what happened, how they found him, and about that geek
+chamber-valet being arrested," von Schlichten said. "Did you get
+anything out of him?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's admitted putting poison in the bottle, but he claims it was his
+own idea. But he's one of Father Keeluk's parishioners, so...."</p>
+
+<p>"Keeluk! God damn, so that was it!" von Schlichten almost shouted.
+"Now I know what he wanted with Stalin, and that goat, and those
+rabbits!"</p>
+
+<p>Five thousand miles away, in Konkrook, Themistocles M'zangwe whistled.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Bismillah</i>! How dumb can we get?" he cried. "Of course they'd need
+terrestrial animals, to find out what would poison a Terran! Wait a
+minute; I'll make a note of that, to spring on this geek, if the
+Kragans haven't finished him by now." Von Schlichten watched M'zangwe
+pick up a stenophone and whisper into it for a moment. "All right,
+Carlos, what else?"</p>
+
+<p>"Has Eric been notified?"</p>
+
+<p>"We called Keegark, but he's in audience with King Orgzild, and we
+can't reach him."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, who's in charge at Konkrook, now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much of anybody. Laviola, the Fiscal Secretary, and Hans
+Meyerstein, the Banking Cartel's lawyer, and Howlett, the Personnel
+Chief, and Buhr<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>mann, the Commercial Secretary, have made up a sort of
+quadrumvirate and are trying to run things. I don't know what would
+happen if anything came up suddenly...." A blue-gray uniformed arm,
+with a major's cuff-braid, came into the screen, handing a slip of
+paper to M'zangwe; he took it, glanced at it, and swore. Von
+Schlichten waited until he had read it through.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, something has, all right," the African said. "We just got a
+call from Jaikark's Palace&mdash;a revolt's broken out, presumably headed
+by Gurgurk; Household Guards either mutinied or wiped out by the
+mutineers, 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. The
+native-lieutenant in charge of the Kragans just radioed in; says the
+situation is desperate."</p>
+
+<p>"When a Kragan says that, he means damn near hopeless. Is this being
+recorded?" When M'zangwe nodded, he continued: "All right. Use the
+recording for your authority and take charge. I'm declaring martial
+rule 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'm
+leaving for Konkrook at once; I ought to get in by 0800.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, as to the trouble at the Palace. Don't commit more than one
+company of Kragans and ten airjeeps and four combat-cars, and tell
+them to evacuate Jaikark and his followers and our Kragans to Gongonk
+Island. And alert your whole force. These geek palace revolutions are
+always synchronized with street-rioting, and this thing seems to have
+been synchronized with Sid Harrington's death, too. Get our Kragans
+out if you can't save anybody else from the Palace, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> sacrificing
+thirty or forty men to save twenty is no kind of business. And keep
+sending 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 coming
+in."</p>
+
+<p>He rose and left the booth. If we can pull Jaikark's bacon off the
+fire, he was thinking, the Company can dictate its own terms to him
+afterward; 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 step
+toward getting rid of all these geek despots. And with Eric Blount as
+Governor-General....</p>
+
+<p>The girl captain in charge of the station met him as he came out.</p>
+
+<p>"Poison," he told her. "A geek servant did the job, on orders from
+Gurgurk and possibly Rakkeed. Gurgurk's started a putsch against King
+Jaikark; I'm going to Konkrook at once. Call the military airport and
+have my command-car brought to Company House."</p>
+
+<p>Harry Quong and Hassan Bogdanoff had been at the banquet, too; on a
+world of lizard-faced silicate-eaters, the social difference between a
+human general and a human aircar-driver was almost infinitesimal. He'd
+have to talk to Barney Mordkovitz, too; when word of events at
+Konkrook got out among the local geeks, as it probably had already....</p>
+
+<p>The inner door of the soundproofed telecast-room burst open, three men
+hurried inside, and it slammed shut behind them. In the brief
+interval, there had been firing audible from outside. One of the men
+had a pistol in his right hand, and with his left arm he supported a
+companion, whose shoulder was mangled and dripped blood. The third man
+had a burp-gun in his hands. All were in civilian dress-shorts and
+light jackets. The man with the pistol holstered it and helped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> his
+injured companion into a chair. The burp-gunner advanced into the
+room, looked around, saw von Schlichten, and addressed him.</p>
+
+<p>"General! The geeks turned on us!" he cried. "The Tenth North Uller's
+mutinied; they're running wild all over the place. They've taken their
+barracks and supply-buildings, and the lorry-hangars and the
+maintenance-yard; they're headed this way in a mob. Some of the Zirk
+Cavalry's joined them."</p>
+
+<p>"How about the Kragans?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Eighteenth Rifles? They're with us. I saw a party of them firing
+into the mob; I saw some of the Tenth N.U.N.I. tossing a dead Kragan
+on their bayonets...."</p>
+
+<p>"Have any ammo left for that burp-gun? Come on, then; let's see what
+it'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."</p>
+
+<p>He opened the door, and the rattle of shots outside became audible
+again. The civilian with the burp-gun knew better than to let a
+general go out first; elbowing von Schlichten out of the way, he
+crouched over his weapon and dashed outside. Drawing his pistol, von
+Schlichten followed, pulling the door shut after him.</p>
+
+<p>Darkness had fallen, while he had been inside; now the whole Company
+Reservation was ablaze with electric lights. Somebody at the
+power-plant&mdash;either the regular staff, if they were still holding, or
+the mutineers, if they had taken it&mdash;had thrown on the emergency
+lights. There was a confused mass of gray-skinned figures in front of
+Company House, reflected light twinkling on steel over them; from the
+direction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> of the native-troops barracks more natives were coming on
+the run. On the roof of a building across the street, two machine-guns
+were already firing into the mob. A group of Terrans came running out
+of a roadway between two buildings, from the direction of the
+repair-shops; several of them paused to fire behind them with pistols.
+They started toward Company House, saw what was going on there, and
+veered, darting into the door of the building from which the
+auto-weapons were firing. From up the street, a hundred-odd
+saurian-faced native soldiers were coming at the double, bayonets
+fixed 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.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the score, captain?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Tenth North Uller and the Fifth Cavalry have mutinied; so have these
+rag-tag Auxiliaries. That mob down there's part of them." He was
+puffing under the double effort of running and talking. "Whole thing
+blew up in seconds; no chance to communicate with anybody...."</p>
+
+<p>A Terran woman, in black slacks and an orange sweater, ran across the
+street in front of them, pursued by a group of enlisted "men" of the
+Tenth North Uller Native Infantry, all shrieking "<i>Znidd suddabit!</i>"
+The fugitive ran into a doorway across the street; before her pursuers
+were aware of their danger, the Kragans had swept over them. There was
+no shooting; the slim, cruel-bladed bayonets did the work. From behind
+him, as he ran, von Schlichten could hear Kragan voices in a new cry:
+"<i>Znidd geek! Znidd geek!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The mob were swarming up onto the steps and into the semi-rotunda of
+the storm-porch. There was shooting, which told him that some of the
+humans who had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> been at the banquet were still alive. He wondered,
+half-sick, how many, and whether they could hold out till he could
+clear the doorway, and, most of all, he found himself thinking of
+Paula Quinton. Skidding to a stop within fifty yards of the mob, he
+flung out his arms crucifix-wise to halt the Kragans. Behind, he could
+hear the Terrans and native-officers shouting commands to form front.</p>
+
+<p>"Give them one clip, reload, and then give them the bayonet!" he
+ordered. "Shove them off the steps and then clear the porch!"</p>
+
+<p>"One clip, fire, and reload, at will!" somebody passed it on in
+Kragan.</p>
+
+<p>The hundred rifles let go all at once, and for five seconds they
+poured a deafening two thousand rounds into the mutineers. There was
+some 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 hit
+him, and half a dozen Kragans went down.</p>
+
+<p>"Reload! Set your safeties!" von Schlichten bellowed. "Charge!"</p>
+
+<p>Under human officers, the North Uller Native Infantry would have stood
+firm. Even under their native-officers and sergeants, they should not
+have broken as they did, but the best of these had paid for their
+loyalty to the Company with their lives, and the rest had destroyed
+their authority by revolting against the source from which it was
+derived. At that, the Skilkan peasantry who made up the Tenth Infantry
+and the Zirk cavalrymen tried briefly to fight as individuals,
+shrieking "<i>Znidd suddabit!</i>" until the Kragans were upon them,
+stabbing and shooting. They drove the rioters from the steps or killed
+them there, they wiped out those who had gotten into the semicircle of
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> storm-porch. The inside doors, von Schlichten saw, were open, but
+beyond them were Terrans and a dozen or so Kragans. Hideyoshi O'Leary
+and Barney Mordkovitz seemed to be in command of these.</p>
+
+<p>"We had about thirty seconds' warning," Mordkovitz reported, "and the
+Kragans in the hall bought us another sixty seconds. Of course, we all
+had our pistols...."</p>
+
+<p>"Hey! These storm-doors are wedged!" somebody discovered. "Those
+goddam geek servants ...!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah, kill any of them you catch," somebody else advised. "If we
+could have gotten these doors closed...."</p>
+
+<p>The mob, driven from the steps, was trying to reform and renew the
+attack. From up the street, the machine-guns, silent during the
+bayonet-fight, began hammering again. The mob surged forward to get
+out of their fire, and were met by a rifle-blast and a hedge of
+bayonets at the steps; they surged back, and the machine-guns flailed
+them again. They started to rush the building from whence the
+automatic-fire came, and there was a fusillade and a shriek of "<i>Znidd
+geek!</i>" from up the street. They turned and fled in the direction from
+whence they had come, bullets scourging them from three directions at
+once.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment, von Schlichten and the three Terrans and eighty-odd
+Kragans who had survived the fight stood on the steps, weapons poised,
+seeking more enemies. The machine-guns up the street stuttered a few
+short bursts and were silent. From behind, the beleaguered Terrans and
+their Kragan guards were emerging. He saw Jules Keaveney and his wife,
+Commander Prinsloo of the <i>Aldebaran</i>, Harry Quong and Bogdanoff. Ah,
+there she was! He heaved a breath of relief and waved to her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Kragans were already setting about their after-battle chores.
+About twenty of them spread out on guard; the others, by fours, went
+into the street, one covering with his rifle while the other three
+checked on their own casualties, used the short, leaf-shaped swords
+they carried to slash off the heads of enemy wounded, and collected
+weapons and ammunition. A couple of hundred more Kragans, led by
+Native-Major Kormork, the co-parent of young with King Kankad, came up
+at the double and stopped in front of Company House.</p>
+
+<p>"We were in quarters, aboard the <i>Aldebaran</i> and in the guesthouse at
+the airport," Kormork reported. "We were attacked, fifteen minutes
+ago, by a mob. We took ten minutes beating them off, and five more
+getting here. I sent Native-Captain Zeerjeek and the rest of the force
+to retake the supply-depot and the shops and lorry hangars, which had
+been taken, and relieve the military airport, which is under attack."</p>
+
+<p>There was still firing from the commercial airport and the smaller
+military airfield. Once there was a string of heavy explosions that
+sounded like 80-mm rockets.</p>
+
+<p>"Good enough. I hope you didn't spread yourself out too thin. What's
+the situation at the commercial airport?"</p>
+
+<p>"The two ships, the <i>Aldebaran</i> and the freighter <i>Northern Star</i>, are
+both safe," Kormork replied. "I saw them go on contragravity and rise
+to about a hundred feet."</p>
+
+<p>"Whose crowd is that you have?" he asked the Terran lieutenant who had
+taken over command of the first force of Kragans.</p>
+
+<p>"Company 6, Eighteenth Rifles, sir. We were on duty at the guardhouse;
+fighting broke out in the di<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>rection of the native barracks. A couple
+of runners from Captain Retief of Company 4 came in with word that he
+was being attacked by mutineers from the Tenth N.U.N.I. but that he
+was holding them back. So Captain Charbonneau, who was killed a few
+minutes ago, left a Terran lieutenant and a Kragan native-lieutenant
+and a couple of native-sergeants and thirty Kragans to hold the
+guardhouse, and brought the rest of us here."</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten nodded. "You'd pass the military airport and the
+power-plant, wouldn't you?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. The military airport's holding out, and I saw the
+red-and-yellow danger-lights on the fence around the power-plant."</p>
+
+<p>That meant the power-plant was, for the time, safe; somebody'd turned
+twenty thousand volts into the fence.</p>
+
+<p>"All right. I'm setting up my command post at the telecast station,
+where the communication equipment is." He turned to the crowd that had
+come out onto the porch from inside. "Where's Colonel Cheng-Li?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here, general." The Intelligence and Constabulary officer pushed
+through the crowd. "I was on the phone, talking to the military
+airport, the commercial airport, ordnance depot, spaceport, ship-docks
+and power-plant. All answer. I'm afraid Pop Goode, at the city
+power-plant, is done for; nobody answers there, but the TV-pickup is
+still on in the load-dispatcher's room, and the place is full of
+geeks. Colonel Jarman's coming here with a lorry to get combat-car
+crews; he's short-handed. Port-Captain Leavitt has all the native
+labor at the airport and spaceport herded into a repair dock; he's
+keeping them covered with the forward 90-mm gun of the <i>Northern
+Star</i>. Lorry-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>hangars, repair-shops and maintenance-yards don't
+answer."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I was going to ask you. Good enough. Harry Quong, Hassan
+Bogdanoff!"</p>
+
+<p>His command-car crew front-and-centered.</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to take Colonel O'Leary up, as soon as my car's brought
+here.... Hid, you go up and see what's going on. Drop flares where
+there isn't any light. And take a look at the native-labor camp and
+the equipment-park, south of the reservation.... Kormork, you take all
+your gang, and half these soldiers from the Eighteenth, here, and help
+clear the native-troops barracks. And don't bother taking any
+prisoners; we can't spare personnel to guard them."</p>
+
+<p>Kormork grinned. The taking of prisoners had always been one of those
+irrational Terran customs which no Ulleran regarded with favor, or
+even comprehension.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Authority of Governor-General von Schlichten</h3>
+
+
+<p>There was fresh intelligence from Konkrook, by the time he returned to
+the telecast station. Mutiny had broken out there among the laborers
+and native troops, who outnumbered the Terrans and their Kragan
+mercenaries on Gongonk Island by five thousand to five hundred and
+fifteen hundred respectively. The attempt to relieve Jaikark's palace
+had been called off before the relief-force could be sent; there was
+heavy and confused fighting all over the island, and most of the
+combat contragravity and about half the Kragan Rifles had had to be
+committed to defend the Company farms across the Channel, on the
+mainland, south of the city. There had also been an urgent call for
+help from Colonel Rodolfo MacKinnon, in command of Company troops at
+the Keegark Residency, and another from the Residency at Kwurk, one of
+the Free Cities on the eastern shore of Takkad Sea.</p>
+
+<p>He called Keegark; a girl, apparently one of the civilian telecast
+technicians, answered.</p>
+
+<p>"We must have help, General von Schlichten," she told him. "The native
+troops, all but two hundred Kragans, have mutinied. They have
+everything here except Company House&mdash;docks, airport, everything.
+We're trying to hold out, but there are thousands of them. Our Takkad
+Native Infantry, soldiers of King<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> Orgzild's army, and townspeople.
+They all seem to have firearms...."</p>
+
+<p>"What happened to Eric Blount and your Resident-Agent, Mr. Lemoyne?"</p>
+
+<p>"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, we
+must have help...."</p>
+
+<p>A call came in, a few minutes later, from Krink, five hundred miles to
+the northeast across the mountains; the Resident-Agent there, one
+Francis Xavier Shapiro, reported rioting in the city and an attempted
+palace-revolution against King Jonkvank, and that the Residency was
+under attack. By way of variety, it was the army of King Jonkvank that
+had mutinied; the Sixth North Uller Native Infantry and the two
+companies of Zirk cavalry at Krink were still loyal, along with the
+Kragans.</p>
+
+<p>There was a pattern to all this. Von Schlichten stood staring at the
+big map, on the wall, showing the Takkad Sea area at the Equatorial
+Zone, and the country north of it to the pole, the area of Uller
+occupied by the Company. He was almost beginning to discern the
+underlying logic of the past half-hour's events when Keaveney, the
+Skilk Resident, blundered into him in a half-daze.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry, general, didn't see you." His face was ashen, and his jowls
+sagged. Von Schlichten wondered if there could be another spectacle so
+woe-begone as a back-slapping extrovert with the bottom knocked out of
+him. "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's
+the end of all of us!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's not quite that bad, Mr. Keaveney." He looked at his watch. It
+was now nearly an hour since the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> native troops here at Skilk had
+mutinied. Insurrections like this usually succeeded or failed in the
+first hour. It was a little early to be certain, but he was beginning
+to 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 cheerfully
+than he felt, then turned to ask Brigadier-General Mordkovitz how the
+fighting was going at the native-troops barracks.</p>
+
+<p>"Not badly, general. Colonel Jarman's got some contragravity up and
+working. They blew out all four of the Tenth N.U.N.I.'s barracks; the
+Tenth and the Zirks are trying to defend the cavalry barracks. Some of
+our Kragans managed to slip around behind the cavalry stables. They're
+leading out hipposaurs, and sniping at the rear of the cavalry
+barracks."</p>
+
+<p>"That'll give us some cavalry of our own; a lot of these Kragans are
+good riders.... How about the repair-shops and maintenance-yard and
+lorry-hangars? I don't want these geeks getting hold of that equipment
+and using it against us."</p>
+
+<p>"Kormork's outfit are trying to take back the lorry-hangars. Jarman's
+got a couple of airjeeps and a combat-car helping them."</p>
+
+<p>"... won't be one of us left by this time tomorrow," Keaveney was
+wailing, to Paula Quinton and another woman. "And the Company is
+finished!"</p>
+
+<p>"We'd better get him a drink, or a cup of coffee, general," Mordkovitz
+suggested. "With a knockout-drop in it."</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Cheng-Li, the Intelligence officer, seemed to have somewhat
+the same idea. He approached Keaveney and tried to quiet him. At the
+same time, a woman in black slacks and an orange sweater&mdash;the one
+whose pursuers had been overrun by the Kragans<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> at the beginning of
+the fighting&mdash;approached von Schlichten.</p>
+
+<p>"General, King Kankad's calling," she said. "He's on the screen in
+booth four."</p>
+
+<p>"Right." To avoid any possibility of misunderstanding, he slipped his
+geek-speaker into his mouth before entering the booth. Kankad's face
+was looking out of the screen at him, with Phil Yamazaki, the telecast
+operator at Kankad's Town, standing behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"Von!" The Kragan spoke almost as though in physical pain. "What can I
+do to help? I have twenty thousand of my people here who are capable
+of bearing arms, all with firearms, but I have transport for only five
+hundred. Where shall I send them?"</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten thought quickly. Keegark was finished; the Residency
+stood in the middle of the city, surrounded by two hundred thousand of
+King Orgzild's troops and subjects. Since Ullerans were bisexual, the
+total population, less the senile, crippled, and very young, was the
+military potential. Sending Kankad's five hundred warriors and his
+meager contragravity there would be the same as shoveling them into a
+furnace. The people at Keegark would have to be written off, like the
+twenty Kragans at Jaikark's palace.</p>
+
+<p>"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 find
+additional transport for you. I'll call him."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll send off what force I can, at once," Kankad promised. "How does
+it go with you at Skilk?"</p>
+
+<p>"We're holding, so far," he replied. "Paula is with me, here; she
+sends her friendship."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Captain Inez Malavez, the woman officer in charge of the station, put
+her head into the booth.</p>
+
+<p>"General! Immediate-urgency message from Colonel O'Leary," she said.
+"Native laborers from the mine-labor camp are pouring into the
+mine-equipment park. Colonel O'Leary's used all his rockets and
+MG-ammunition trying to stop them."</p>
+
+<p>"Call you back, later," von Schlichten told Kankad. "I'll see what
+Them M'zangwe can do about transport; get what force you can started
+for Konkrook at once."</p>
+
+<p>He left the booth, removing his geek-speaker. "Barney!" he called.
+"General Mordkovitz! Who's the ranking officer in direct contact with
+the Eighteenth Rifles? Major Falkenberg?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's right."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, tell him to get as many of his Kragans as he can spare down to
+the equipment-park." He turned to Inez Malavez. "You call Jarman; tell
+him what O'Leary reported, and tell him to get cracking on it. Tell
+him not to let those geeks get any of that equipment onto
+contragravity; 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 or
+lorries, to get Falkenberg's Rifles to the equipment-park.... How's
+business at the lorry-hangars and maintenance-yard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Kormork's still working on that," the girl captain told him. "Nothing
+definite, yet."</p>
+
+<p>In one corner of the big room, somebody had thumbtacked a
+ten-foot-square map of the Company area to the floor. Paula Quinton
+and Mrs. Jules Keaveney were on their knees beside it, pushing out
+handfuls of little pink and white pills that somebody had brought in
+two bottles from the dispensary across the road, each using a
+billiard-bridge. The girl in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> orange sweater had a handful of
+scribbled notes, and was telling them where to push the pills. There
+were other objects on the map, too&mdash;pistol-cartridges, and cigarettes,
+and foil-wrapped food-concentrate wafers. Paula, seeing him,
+straightened.</p>
+
+<p>"The pink are ours, general," she said. "The white are the geeks." Von
+Schlichten suppressed a grin; that was the second time he'd heard her
+use that word, this evening. "The cigarettes are airjeeps, the
+cartridges are combat-cars, and the wafers are lorries or
+troop-carriers."</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly regulation map-markers, but I've seen stranger things
+used.... Captain Malavez!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir?" The girl captain, rushing past, her hands full of
+teleprint-sheets, stopped in mid-stride.</p>
+
+<p>"What we need," he told her, "is a big TV-screen, and a pickup mounted
+on some sort of a contragravity vehicle at about two to five thousand
+feet directly overhead, to give us an image of the whole area. Can
+do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can try, sir. We have an eight-foot circular screen that ought to do
+all right for two thousand feet. I'll implement that at once."</p>
+
+<p>Going into a temporarily idle telecast booth, he called Konkrook.
+First he spoke to a civilian who chewed a dead cigar, and then he got
+Themistocles M'zangwe on the screen.</p>
+
+<p>"How is it, now?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Getting a little better," the Graeco-African replied. "Half an hour
+ago, we were shooting geeks out the windows, here; now we have them
+contained between the spaceport and the native-troops and labor
+barracks, and down the east side of the island to the farms. We have
+the wire around the farms on the island electrified, and we're using
+almost all our com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>bat contragravity to keep the farms on the mainland
+clear." He hesitated for a moment. "Did you hear about Eric and
+Lemoyne?"</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"We just got a call from Rodolfo MacKinnon. He took a couple of
+prisoners and made them talk. The whole party that were at Orgzild's
+palace were massacred. Some of them were lucky enough to get killed
+fighting. The geeks took Eric and Hendrik alive; rolled them in a
+puddle of thermoconcentrate fuel and set fire to them. When we can
+spare the contragravity, we're going to drop something on the Kee-geek
+embassy, over in town."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that was what I wanted to call you about&mdash;contragravity." He
+told M'zangwe about King Kankad's offer. "His crowd ought to be coming
+in in a couple of hours. What can you scrape up to send to Kankad's
+Town to airlift Kragans in?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we have three hundred-and-fifty-foot gun-cutters, one 90-mm gun
+apiece. The <i>Elmoran</i>, the <i>Gaucho</i>, and the <i>Bushranger</i>. But they're
+not much as transports, and we need them here pretty badly. Then, we
+have five fertilizer and charcoal scows, and a lot of heavy transport
+lorries, and two one-eighty-foot pickup boats."</p>
+
+<p>"How about the <i>Piet Joubert</i>?" von Schlichten asked. "She was due in
+Konkrook from the east about 1300 today, wasn't she?"</p>
+
+<p>M'zangwe swore. "She got in, all right. But the geeks boarded her at
+the dock, within twenty minutes after things started. They tried to
+lift out with her, and the Channel Battery shot her down into Konkrook
+Channel, off the Fifty Sixth Street docks."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you couldn't let the geeks have her, to use against us. What do
+you hear from the other ships?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"<i>Procyon</i>'s at Grank; we haven't had any reports of any kind from
+there, which doesn't look so good. The <i>Northern Lights</i> is at Grank,
+too. The <i>Oom Paul Kruger</i> should have been at Bwork, in the east,
+when the gun went off. And the <i>Jan Smuts</i> and the <i>Christiaan De
+Wett</i> were both at Keegark; we can assume Orgzild has both of them."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. I'm sending <i>Aldebaran</i> to Kankad's, to pick up more
+reenforcements for you."</p>
+
+<p>"We can use them! And with <i>Aldebaran</i>, we ought to be able to take
+the offensive against the city by this time tomorrow. Anything else?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at the moment. I'll see about getting <i>Aldebaran</i> sent off, now."</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the booth, he heard, above the clatter of
+communications-machines and hubbub of voices, Jules Keaveney arguing
+contentiously. Evidently Colonel Cheng-Li's efforts to drag the
+Resident out of his despondency had been an excessive success.</p>
+
+<p>"But it's crazy! Not just here; everywhere on Uller!" Keaveney was
+saying. "How did they do it? They have no telecast equipment."</p>
+
+<p>"You have me stopped, Jules," Mordkovitz was replying. "I know a lot
+of rich geeks have receiving sets, but no sending sets."</p>
+
+<p>The pattern that had been tantalizing von Schlichten took visible
+shape in his mind. For a moment, he shelved the matter of the
+<i>Aldebaran</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"They didn't need sending equipment, Barney," he said. "They used
+ours."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" Keaveney challenged.</p>
+
+<p>"Look what happened. Sid Harrington was poisoned in Konkrook. The
+news, 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> the
+signal they'd agreed upon, probably months in advance. All they had to
+do was have that geek servant put poison in Harrington's whiskey, and
+we did the rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what was our intelligence doing&mdash;sleeping?" Keaveney demanded
+angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"No, they were writing reports for your civil administration blokes to
+stuff in the wastebasket, and being called
+mailed-fist-and-rattling-saber alarmists for their pains." He turned
+away from Keaveney. "Barney, where's Dirk Prinsloo?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aboard his ship. He hitched a ride to the airport with Jarman, when
+he was here picking up air-crews."</p>
+
+<p>"Call him. Tell him to take the <i>Aldebaran</i> to Kankad's Town, at once;
+as soon as he arrives there, which ought to be about 1100, he's to
+pick 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."</p>
+
+<p>"To Konkrook?" Keaveney fairly howled. "Are you nuts? Don't you think
+we need reenforcements here, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>He crossed the room, to where two Kragans, a male sergeant, and the
+ubiquitous girl in the orange sweater were struggling to get a big
+circular TV-screen up, then turned to look at the situation-map. A
+girl tech-sergeant was keeping Paula Quinton and Mrs. Jules Keaveney
+informed.</p>
+
+<p>"Start pushing geeks out of the Fifth Zirk Cavalry barracks," the
+sergeant was saying. "The one at the north end, and the one next to
+it; they're both on fire, now." She tossed a slip into the wastebasket
+beside<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> her and glanced at the next slip. "And more pink pills back of
+the barracks and stables, and move them a little to the northwest;
+Kragans as skirmishers, to intercept geeks trying to slip away from
+the cavalry barracks."</p>
+
+<p>"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. "Let
+them go, and good riddance!"</p>
+
+<p>"I never did like this bridge-of-silver-for-a-fleeing-enemy idea,"
+Paula Quinton said, evicting token-mutineers from the two northern
+barracks. "There's usually two-way traffic on bridges. Kill them here
+and we won't have to worry about keeping them out."</p>
+
+<p>Of course, it was easy to be bloodthirsty about pink pills and white
+pills. Once, on a three-months' reaction-drive voyage from Yggdrasill
+to Loki, he had taught a couple of professors of extraterrestrial
+zoology to play <i>kriegspiel</i>, and before the end of the trip, he was
+being horrified by the callous disregard they showed for casualties.
+But little Paula had the right idea; dead enemies don't hit back.</p>
+
+<p>A young Kragan with his lower left arm in a sling and a daub of
+antiseptic plaster over the back of his head came up and gave him a
+radioprint slip. Guido Karamessinis, the Resident-Agent at Grank, had
+reported, at last. The city, he said, was quiet, but King Yoorkerk's
+troops had seized the Company airport and docks, taken the <i>Procyon</i>
+and the <i>Northern Lights</i> and put guards aboard them, and were
+surrounding the Residency. He wanted to know what to do.</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten managed to get him on the screen, after a while.</p>
+
+<p>"It looks as though Yoorkerk's trying to play both sides at once," he
+told the Grank Resident. "If the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> rebellion's put down, he'll come
+forward as your friend and protector; if we're wiped out elsewhere,
+he'll yell '<i>Znidd suddabit!</i>' and swamp you. Don't antagonize him; we
+can'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."</p>
+
+<p>He called Krink again. A girl with red-gold hair and a dusting of
+freckles across her nose answered.</p>
+
+<p>"How are you making out?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"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 keeping
+open a couple of streets between there and here. We air-lifted all our
+Kragans and half the Sixth N.U.N.I. to the Palace, and we have the
+Zirks patrolling the streets on 'saurback. Now, we have our lorries
+and troop-carriers out picking up elements of Jonkvank's loyal troops
+outside town."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's doing the rioting, then?"</p>
+
+<p>She named three of Jonkvank's regiments. "And the city hoodlums, and
+priests from the temples of one sect that followed Rakkeed, and
+Skilkan fifth columnists. Mr. Shapiro can give you the details. Shall
+I call him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind. He's probably busy, he's not as easy on the eyes as you
+are, 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 troops
+into the city?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not before this time tomorrow."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Are you in radio communication with Jonkvank now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Full telecast, audio-visual," the girl replied. "Just a minute,
+general."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He put in his geek-speaker. The screen exploded into multi-colored
+light, then cleared. Within a few minutes, a saurian Ulleran face was
+looking out of it at him&mdash;a harsh-lined, elderly face, with an old
+scar, quartz-crusted, along one side.</p>
+
+<p>"Your Majesty," von Schlichten greeted him.</p>
+
+<p>Jonkvank pronounced something intended to correspond to von
+Schlichten's name. "We have image-met under sad circumstances,
+general," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Sad for both of us, King Jonkvank; we must help one another. I am
+told that your soldiers in Krink have risen against you, and that your
+loyal troops are far from the city."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. That was the work of my War Minister, Hurkkurk, who was in the
+pay of King Firkked of Skilk, may Jeels devour him alive! I have
+Hurkkurk's head here somewhere, if you want to see it, but that will
+not bring my loyal soldiers to Krink any sooner."</p>
+
+<p>"Dead traitors' heads do not interest me, King Jonkvank," von
+Schlichten replied, in what he estimated that the Krinkan king would
+interpret as a tone of cold-blooded cruelty. "There are too many
+traitors' heads still on traitors' shoulders.... What regiments are
+loyal to you, and where are they now?"</p>
+
+<p>Jonkvank began naming regiments and locating them, all at minor
+provincial towns at least a hundred miles from Krink.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurkkurk did his work well; I'm afraid you killed him too
+mercifully," von Schlichten said. "Well, I'm sending the <i>Northern
+Star</i> to Krink. She can only bring in one regiment at a trip, the way
+they're scattered; which one do you want first?"</p>
+
+<p>Jonkvank's mouth, until now compressed grimly, parted in a gleaming
+smile. He made an exclamation of pleasure which sounded rather like a
+boy running<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> along a picket fence with a stick.</p>
+
+<p>"Good, general! Good!" he cried. "The first should be the regiment
+Murderers, at Furnk; they all have rifles like your soldiers. Have
+them brought to the Great Square, at the Palace here. And then, the
+regiment Fear-Makers, at Jeelznidd, and the regiment Corpse-Reapers,
+at...."</p>
+
+<p>"Let that go until the Murderers are in," von Schlichten advised.
+"They're at Furnk, you say? I'll send the <i>Northern Star</i> there,
+directly."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, good, general! I will not soon forget this! And as soon as the
+work 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 this
+wickedness, both here and there!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good. Now, if you will pardon me, I'll go to give the necessary
+orders...."</p>
+
+<p>As he left the booth, he saw Hideyoshi O'Leary in front of the
+situation-map, and hailed him.</p>
+
+<p>"Harry and Hassan are getting the car re-ammoed; they dropped me off
+here. Want to come up with us and see the show?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I want you to go to Krink, as soon as Harry brings the car here
+again." He told O'Leary what he intended doing. "You'll probably have
+to go around ahead of the <i>Star</i> and alert these regiments. And as
+soon as things stabilize at Krink, prod Jonkvank into airlifting
+troops here. You're authorized, in my name, to promise Jonkvank that
+he can assume political control at Skilk, after we've stuffed
+Firkked's head in the dustbin."</p>
+
+<p>Jules Keaveney, who always seemed to be where he wasn't wanted, heard
+that and fairly screamed.</p>
+
+<p>"General von Schlichten! That is a political decision! You have no
+authority to make promises like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> that; that is a matter for the
+Governor-General, at least!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as of now, and until a successor to Sid Harrington can be sent
+here from Terra, I'm Governor-General," von Schlichten told him,
+mentally thanking Keaveney for reminding him of the necessity for such
+a step. "Captain Malavez! You will send out an all-station telecast,
+immediately: Military Commander-in-Chief Carlos von Schlichten, being
+informed of the deaths of both Governor-General Harrington and
+Lieutenant-Governor Blount, assumes the duties of Governor-General, as
+of 0001 today." He turned to Keaveney. "Does that satisfy you?" he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it doesn't. You have no authority to assume a civil position of
+any sort, let alone the very highest position...."</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten unbuttoned his holster and took out his authority,
+letting Keaveney look into the muzzle of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Here it is," he said. "If you're wise, don't make me appeal to it."</p>
+
+<p>Keaveney shrugged. "I can't argue with that," he said. "But I don't
+fancy the Uller Company is going to be impressed by it."</p>
+
+<p>"The Uller Company," von Schlichten replied, "is six and a half
+parsecs 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 little
+over twenty-one years, each way." He holstered the pistol again. "You
+were bitching about how we needed reenforcements, a while ago. Well,
+here's where we have to reverse Clausewitz and use politics as an
+extension by other means of war."</p>
+
+<p>"That brings up another question, general," one of Keaveney's
+subordinates said. "Can we hold out long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> enough for help to get here
+from Terra?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 live
+Terran left on Uller." He felt a brief sadistic pleasure as he watched
+Keaveney's face sag in horror. "What do you think we'll live on, for a
+year?" he asked. "On this planet, there's not more than a three
+months' supply of any sort of food a human can eat. And the ships
+that'll be coming in until word of our plight can get to Terra won't
+bring enough to keep us going. We need the farms and livestock and the
+animal-tissue culture plant at Konkrook, and the farms at Krink and on
+the plateau back of Skilk, and we need peace and native labor to work
+them."</p>
+
+<p>Nobody seemed to have anything to say after that, for a while. Then
+Keaveney suggested that the next ship was due in from Niflheim in
+three months, and that it could be used to evacuate all the Terrans on
+Uller.</p>
+
+<p>"And I'll personally shoot any able-bodied Terran who tries to board
+that ship," von Schlichten promised. "Get this through your heads, all
+of you. We are going to break this rebellion, and we are going to hold
+Uller for the Company and the Terran Federation." He looked around
+him. "Now, get back to work, all of you," he told the group that had
+formed around him and Keaveney. "Miss Quinton, you just heard me order
+my adjutant, Colonel O'Leary, on detached duty to Krink. I want you to
+take over for him. You'll have rank and authority as colonel for the
+duration of this war."</p>
+
+<p>She was thunderstruck. "But I know absolutely nothing about military
+matters. There must be a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> hundred people here who are better qualified
+than I am...."</p>
+
+<p>"There are, and they all have jobs, and I'd have to find replacements
+for them, and replacements for the replacements. You won't leave any
+vacancy to be filled. And you'll learn, fast enough." He went over to
+the situation-map again, and looked at the arrangement of pink and
+white pills. "First of all, I want you to call Jarman, at the military
+airport, and have an airjeep and driver sent around here for me. I'm
+going up and have a look around. Barney, keep the show going while I'm
+out, and tell Colonel Quinton what it's all about."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>Don't Push Them Anywhere Put Them Back in the Bottle</h3>
+
+
+<p>He looked at his watch, and stood for a moment, pumping the stale air
+and tobacco-smoke of the telecast station out of his lungs, as the
+light airjeep let down into the street. Oh-one-fifteen&mdash;two hours and
+a half since the mutiny at the native-troops barracks had broken out.
+The Company reservation was still ablaze with lights, and over the
+roof of the hospital and dispensary and test-lab he could see the
+glare 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.</p>
+
+<p>The driver, a young lieutenant who seemed to be of predominantly
+Malayan and Polynesian blood, slid back the duraglass canopy for him
+to climb in, then snapped it into place when he had strapped himself
+into his seat.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you handle the armament, sir?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten nodded approvingly. Not a very flattering question, but
+the boy was right to make sure, before they started out.</p>
+
+<p>"I've done it, once or twice," he understated. "Let's go; I want a
+look at what's going on down at the equipment-park and the labor-camp,
+first."</p>
+
+<p>They lifted up, the driver turning the nose of the airjeep in the
+direction of the flames and explosions and magnesium-lights to the
+south and tapping his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> booster-button gently. The vehicle shot forward
+and came floating in over the scene of the fighting. The situation-map
+at the improvised headquarters had shown a mixture of pink and white
+pills in the mine-equipment park; something was going to have to be
+done about the lag in correcting it, for the area was entirely in the
+hands of loyal Company troops, and the mob of laborers and mutinous
+soldiers had been pushed back into the temporary camp where the
+workers had been gathered to await transportation to the Arctic. As he
+feared, the rioting workers, many of whom were trained to handle
+contragravity equipment, had managed to lift up a number of
+dump-trucks and powershovels and bulldozers, intending to use them as
+improvised airtanks, but Jarman's combat-cars had gotten on the job
+promptly and all of these had been shot down and were lying in
+wreckage, mostly among the rows of parked mining-equipment.</p>
+
+<p>From the labor-camp, a surprising volume of fire was being directed
+against the attack which had already started from the retaken
+equipment-park. This was just another evidence of the failure of
+Intelligence and the Constabulary&mdash;and consequently of himself&mdash;to
+anticipate the brewing storm. There was, of course, practically no
+chance of keeping Ullerans from having native weapons, swords, knives,
+even bows and air-rifles, and a certain number of Volund-made
+trade-quality automatic pistols could be expected, but most of the
+fire was coming from military rifles, and now and then he could see
+the furnace-like backflash of a recoilless rifle or a bazooka, or the
+steady flicker of a machine-gun. Even if a few of these weapons had
+been brought from the barracks by retreating Tenth Infantry or Fifth
+Cavalry mutineers, there were still too many.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Hovering above the fighting, aloof from it, he saw six long
+troop-carriers land and disgorge Kragan Rifles who had been released
+by the liquidation of resistance at the native-troops barracks. A
+little later, two airtanks floated in, and then two more, going off
+contragravity and lumbering on treads to fire their 90-mm rifles. At
+the same time, combat-cars swooped in, banging away with their lighter
+auto-cannon and launching rockets. The titanium prefab-huts, set up to
+house the laborers and intended to be taken north with them for their
+stay on the polar desert, were simply wiped away. Among the wreckage,
+resistance was being blown out like the lights of a candelabrum. Push
+the white pills out, girls, he thought. Don't push them anywhere; put
+them back in the bottle. This year, there wouldn't be any mining done
+at the North Pole; next year, the stockholders'll be bitching about
+their dividend-checks. And a lot of new machine operators are going to
+have to be trained for next year's mining. If there is any mining,
+next year.</p>
+
+<p>He took up the hand-phone and called HQ.</p>
+
+<p>"Von Schlichten, what's the wavelength of the officer in command at
+the equipment-park?"</p>
+
+<p>A voice at the telecast station furnished it; he punched it out.</p>
+
+<p>"Von Schlichten, right overhead. That you, Major Falkenberg? Nice
+going, major, how are your casualties?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not too bad. Twenty or thirty Kragans and loyal Skilkans, and eight
+Terrans killed, about as many wounded."</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty good, considering what you're running into. Get many of your
+Kragans mounted on those hipposaurs?"</p>
+
+<p>"About a hundred, a lot of 'saurs got shot, while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> we were leading
+them out from the stables."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I can see geeks streaming away from the labor-camp, out the
+south end, going in the direction of the river. Use what cavalry you
+have on them, and what contragravity you can spare. I'll drop a few
+flares to show their position and direction."</p>
+
+<p>Anticipating him, the driver turned the airjeep and started toward the
+dry Hoork River. Von Schlichten nodded approval and told him to
+release flares when over the fugitives.</p>
+
+<p>"Right," Falkenberg replied. "I'll get on it at once, general."</p>
+
+<p>"And start moving that mine-equipment up into the Company area. Some
+of it we can put into the air; the rest we can use to build
+barricades. None of it do we want the geeks getting hold of, and the
+equipment-park's outside our practical perimeter. I'll send people to
+help you move it."</p>
+
+<p>"No need to do that, sir; I have about a hundred and fifty loyal North
+Ullerans&mdash;foremen, technicians, overseers&mdash;who can handle it."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Use your own judgment. Put the stuff back of the
+native-troops barracks, and between the power-plant and the Company
+office-buildings, and anywhere else you can." The lieutenant nudged
+him and pushed a couple of buttons on the dashboard.</p>
+
+<p>"Here go the flares, now."</p>
+
+<p>Immediately, a couple of airjeeps pounced in, to strafe the fleeing
+enemy. Somebody must have already been issuing orders on another
+wavelength; a number of Kragans, riding hipposaurs, were galloping
+into the light of the flares.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, let's have a look at the native barracks and the
+maintenance-yards," he said. "And then, we'll make a circuit around
+the Reservation, about two or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> three miles out. I'm not happy about
+where Firkked's army is."</p>
+
+<p>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 know
+it takes time to get one of these geek armies on the road, but...."</p>
+
+<p>"He's hoping our native troops and the mine laborers will be able to
+wipe us out, themselves," von Schlichten said. "For the timidity and
+stupidity of our enemies, Allah make us truly thankful, amen. It's
+something no commander should depend on, but be glad when it happens.
+If Firkked had had a couple of regiments on hand outside the
+reservation to jump us as soon as the Tenth and the Zirks mutinied, he
+could have swamped us in twenty minutes and we'll all have had our
+throats cut by now."</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing going on in the area between the native barracks and
+the mountains except some sporadic firing as small patrols of Kragans
+clashed with clumps of fleeing mutineers. All the barracks, even those
+of the Rifles, were burning; the red-and-yellow danger-lights around
+the power-plant and the water-works and the explosives magazines were
+still on. Most of the floodlights were still on, and there was still
+some fighting around the maintenance-yard. It looked as though the
+survivors of the Tenth N.U.N.I. were in a few small pockets which were
+being squeezed out.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing at all going on north of the Reservation; the
+countryside, by day a checkerboard of walled fields and small
+villages, was dark, except for a dim light, here and there, where the
+occupants of some farmhouse had been awakened by the noise of battle.
+The airjeep dropped lower, and the driver<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> slid open the window beside
+him; von Schlichten could hear the grunts and snorts and squawks of
+farm-animals, similarly aroused.</p>
+
+<p>Then, two miles east of the Reservation, he caught a new sound&mdash;the
+flowing, riverlike, murmur of something vast on the move.</p>
+
+<p>"Hear that, lieutenant?" he asked. "Head for it, at about a thousand
+feet. When we're directly above it, let go some flares."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir." The younger man had lowered his voice to a whisper.
+"That's geek, headed for the Reservation."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe Firkked's army," von Schlichten thought aloud. "Or maybe a city
+mob."</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite noisy enough for a mob, is it, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"A tired mob," von Schlichten told him. "They'd start out on a run,
+yelling '<i>Znidd Suddabit</i>!' By the time they got across the bridges to
+this side of the river, they'd be winded. They'd stop for a blow, and
+then 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."</p>
+
+<p>The noises were growing clearer, louder. He picked up the phone and
+punched the wavelength of the military airport.</p>
+
+<p>"Von Schlichten, my compliments to Colonel Jarman. Tell him there's a
+geek mob, or possibly Firkked's regulars, on the main highway from
+Skilk, two miles east of the Reservation. Get some combat
+contragravity over here, at once. We'll light them up for you. And
+tell Colonel Jarman to start flying patrols up and down along the
+Hoork River; this may not be the only gang that's coming out to see
+us."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The sounds were directly below, now&mdash;the scuffing of horny-soled feet
+on the dirt road, the clink and rattle of slung weapons, the clicking
+and squeeking of Ulleran voices.</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant said, "Here go the flares, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten shut his eyes, then opened them slowly. The driver,
+upon releasing the flares, had nosed up, banked, turned, and was
+coming in again, down the road toward the advancing column. Von
+Schlichten peered into his all-armament sight, his foot on the
+machine-gun pedal and his fingers on the rocket buttons. The highway
+below was jammed with geeks, and they were all stopped dead and
+staring upward, as though hypnotized by the lights. A second later,
+they had recovered and were shooting&mdash;not at the airjeep, but at the
+four globes of blazing magnesium. Then he had the close-packed mass of
+non-humanity in his sights; he tramped the pedal and began punching
+buttons. He still had four rockets left by the time the mob was behind
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, let's take another pass at them. Same direction."</p>
+
+<p>The driver put the airjeep into a quick loop and came out of it in
+front of the mob, who now had their backs turned and were staring in
+the direction in which they had last seen the vehicle. Again, von
+Schlichten plowed them with rockets and harrowed them with his guns.
+Some of the Skilkans were trying to get over the high fences on either
+side of the road&mdash;really stockades of petrified tree-trunks. Others
+were firing, and this time they were shooting at the airjeep. It took
+one hit from a heavy shellosaur-rifle, and, immediately, the driver
+banked and turned away from the road.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Dammit, why did you do that?" von Schlichten demanded, lifting his
+foot from the gun-pedal. "Are you afraid of the kind of popguns those
+geeks are using?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not afraid to risk my vehicle, or myself, sir," the lieutenant
+replied, with the extreme formality of a very junior officer chewing
+out a very senior one. "I am, however, afraid to risk my passenger.
+Generals are not expendable, sir; neither are they issued for use as
+clay pigeons."</p>
+
+<p>He was right, of course. Von Schlichten admitted it. "I'm too old to
+play cowboy, like this," he said. "Back to the Reservation, telecast
+station."</p>
+
+<p>Looking back over his shoulder, he saw eight or ten more flares
+alight, and the ground-flashes of exploding shells and rockets; the
+air above the road was sparkling with gun-flames. Jarman must have had
+some contragravity ready to be sent off on the instant.</p>
+
+<p>While he had been out, somebody had gotten a TV-pickup mounted on a
+contragravity-lifter and run up to two thousand feet, on the end of a
+steel-tough tensilon mooring-line. The big circular screen was lit,
+showing the whole Company Reservation, with the surrounding
+countryside foreshortened by perspective to the distant lights of
+Skilk. The map had been taken up from the floor, and a big
+terrain-board had been brought in from the Chief Engineer's office and
+set up in its place. In front of the screen, Paula Quinton, Barney
+Mordkovitz, Colonel Cheng-Li, and, conspicuously silent, Jules
+Keaveney sat drinking coffee and munching sandwiches. Half a dozen
+Terrans, of both sexes, were working furiously to get the markers
+which replaced the pink and white pills placed on the board, and one
+of Captain Inez Malavez's non-coms,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> with a headset, was getting
+combat reports directly from the switchboard. Everything was clicking
+like well-oiled machinery.</p>
+
+<p>On the TV-screen, the Residency area was ablaze with light, and so
+were the ship-docks, the airport and spaceport, the shops, and the
+maintenance-yard. On the terrain-board, the latter was now marked as
+completely in Company hands. The ruins of the native-troops barracks
+were still burning, and there was a twinkle of orange-red here and
+there among the ruins of the labor-camp. Much of the equipment for the
+polar mines had already been shifted into defensible ground. The rest
+of the circle was dark, except for the distant lights of Skilk, where
+the nuclear power plant was apparently still functioning in native
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>Then, without warning, a spot of white light blazed into being
+southeast of the Company area and southwest of Skilk, followed by
+another and another. Instantly, von Schlichten glanced up at the row
+of smaller screens, and on one of them saw the view as picked up by a
+patrolling airjeep.</p>
+
+<p>The army of King Firkked of Skilk had finally put in its appearance,
+coming in two columns, one southward from Skilk and the other
+northward along the west bank of the dry river. The former had crossed
+over and joined the latter, about three miles south of the
+Reservation. The scene in the screen was similar to the one he had,
+himself, witnessed through his armament-sight. The Skilkan regulars
+had been marching in formation, some on the road and some along
+parallel lanes and paths. They had the look of trained and disciplined
+troops, but they had made the same mistake as the rabble that had been
+shot up on the north side of the Reservation. Unused to attack from
+the air, they had all halted in place and were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> gaping open-mouthed,
+their opal teeth gleaming in the white flare-light. However, before
+the aircar had passed over them, the lead company of one regiment,
+armed with Terran rifles, had begun firing.</p>
+
+<p>In the big screen, it could be seen that Colonel Jarman had thrown
+most of his available contragravity at them, including the
+combat-cars, that had already started to form the second wave of the
+attack on the mob to the north. Other flares bloomed in the darkness,
+and the fiery trails of rockets curved downward to end in yellow
+flashes on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>The airjeep with the pickup circled back; the troops on the road and
+in the adjoining fields had broken. The former were caught between the
+fences which made Ulleran roads such death-traps when under
+air-attack. The latter had dispersed, and were running away,
+individually and by squads; at first, it looked like a panic, but he
+could see officers signaling to the larger groups of fugitives to open
+out, apparently directing the flight. By this time, there were ten or
+twelve combat-cars and about twenty airjeeps at work. In the moving
+view from the pickup-jeep, he saw what looked like a 90-mm rocket land
+in the middle of a company that was still trying to defend itself with
+small-arms fire on the road, wiping out about half of them.</p>
+
+<p>"Make the most of it, boys," Barney Mordkovitz, his mouth full of
+sandwich, was saying. "Heave it to them; you won't get another chance
+like that at those buggers."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" Colonel Paula Quinton wanted to know. Her military
+education was progressing, but it still had a few gaps to fill in.</p>
+
+<p>"The next time they're air-struck, they won't stay bunched,"
+Mordkovitz replied. "A lot of them didn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> stay bunched this time, if
+you noticed. And they'll keep out from between the fences."</p>
+
+<p>In the large screen, a quick succession of gun-flashes leaped up from
+the direction of the Hoork River and shells began bursting over the scene
+of the attack. The screen tuned to the pickup on the airjeep went
+dead; in the big screen, there was a twinkling of falling fire. Almost
+at once, thirty or forty rocket-trails converged on the gun-position,
+and, for a moment, explosions burned like a bonfire.</p>
+
+<p>"They had a 75-mm at the rear of the column," somebody called from the
+big switchboard. "Lieutenant Kalanang's jeep was hit; Lieutenant
+Vermaas is cutting in his pickup on the same wavelength."</p>
+
+<p>The small screen lighted again. In the big screen, a cluster of
+magnesium-lights appeared above where the Skilkan gun had been; in the
+small 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.</p>
+
+<p>Five or six fairly large fires had broken out, by this time, around
+the point of attack. Von Schlichten nodded approvingly.</p>
+
+<p>"I was wondering how long it'd take somebody to think of that," he
+said. "Granaries and forage-stacks on some of these farms. They'll
+burn for half an hour, at least." He looked at his watch. "And by that
+time, it'll be daylight."</p>
+
+<p>"As far as we know, that was the only 75-mm gun Firkked had," Colonel
+Cheng-Li said. "He has at least six, possibly ten, 40-mm's. It's a
+wonder we haven't seen anything of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's no way of being sure," Jules Keav<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>eney said, "but I
+have an idea they're all at or around the Palace. Firkked knows about
+how much contragravity we have. He's probably wondering why we aren't
+bombing him, now."</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't know we've sold the Palace to King Jonkvank for an army,"
+von Schlichten said. "And that reminds me&mdash;how much contragravity
+could Firkked scrape together, for an attack on us? I've been
+expecting a geek <i>Luftwaffe</i> over here, at any moment."</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Cheng-Li studied the smoking tip of his cigarette for a
+moment. "Well, Firkked owns, personally, three ten-passenger aircars,
+a thing like a troop-carrier that he transports some of his courtiers
+around in, four airjeeps armed with a pair of 15-mm machine-guns
+apiece, and two big lorries. There are possibly two hundred vehicles
+of all types in Skilk and the country around, but some of them are in
+the hands of natives friendly to us and or hostile to Firkked. I can
+get the exact figures from the Constabulary office at Company House."</p>
+
+<p>"That's close enough," von Schlichten told him. "And there'll be
+oodles of thermoconcentrate-fuel, and blasting explosives. Colonel
+Quinton, suppose you call Ed Wallingsby, the Chief Engineer, right
+away; have him commissioned colonel. Tell him to get to work making
+this place secure against air attack; tell him to consult with Colonel
+Jarman. Tell him to get those geeks Leavitt has penned in the
+repair-dock at the airport and use them to dig slit-trenches and fill
+sandbags and so on. He can use Kragan limited-duty wounded to guard
+them.... Mr. Keaveney, you'll begin setting up something in the way of
+an ARP-organization. You'll have to get along on what nobody else
+wants. You will also consult with Colonel Jar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>man, and with Colonel
+Wallingsby. Better get started on it now. Just think of everything
+around here that could go wrong in case of an air attack, and try to
+do something about it in advance."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Geek Luftwaffe and the Kragan Airlift</h3>
+
+
+<p>At 0245, an attack developed on the northwestern corner of the
+Reservation, in the direction of the explosives magazines. It turned
+out to be relatively trivial. Remnants of the mob that had been broken
+up by air attack on the road had gotten together and were making
+rushes in small bands, keeping well spread out. Beating them off took
+considerable ammunition, but it was accomplished with negligible
+casualties to the defenders. They finally stopped coming around
+daylight.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, Themistocles M'zangwe called from Konkrook, appearing
+in the screen with his left arm in a freshly white sling.</p>
+
+<p>"What the hell have you been doing to yourself?" von Schlichten wanted
+to know.</p>
+
+<p>"Crossbow-bolt, about half an hour ago. A couple of inches lower and
+acting Brigadier-General Colbert'd have been talking to you, now,
+instead of me."</p>
+
+<p>"Lucky it didn't have a nitro-capsule on the end. How are you making
+out? Have Kankad's people started coming in, yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, about six hundred of them have gotten in already, in the
+damnedest collection of vehicles you ever saw. Kankad must be using
+every scrap of contragravity he has; it's a regular airborne
+Dunkirk-in-reverse. Kankad sent word that he's coming here<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> in person,
+as soon as he has things organized at his place. And the geeks here
+have scraped together an air-force of their own&mdash;farm-lorries,
+aircars, that sort of thing&mdash;and they're using them to bomb us here
+and at the mainland farm, mostly with nitroglycerine. We've shot down
+about twenty of them, but they're still coming. They tried a
+boat-attack across the Channel; that's how I got this. We've been
+doing some bombing, ourselves; we made a down payment for Eric Blount
+and Hendrik Lemoyne. Took a fifty-ton tank off a fuel-lorry, fitted it
+with a detonator, filled it with thermoconcentrate, and ferried it
+over on the <i>Elmoran</i> and dumped it on the Keegarkan Embassy. It must
+have landed in the middle of the central court; in about fifteen
+seconds, flames were coming out every window in the place." His face
+became less jovial. "We had something pretty bad happen here, too," he
+said. "That Konkrook Fencibles rabble of Prince Jaizerd's mutinied,
+along with the others; they got into the hospital and butchered
+everybody in the place, patients and staff. The Kragans got there too
+late to save anybody, but they wiped out the Fencibles. Jaizerd
+himself was the only one they took alive, and he didn't stay that way
+very long."</p>
+
+<p>"How are you making out with your Civil Administration crowd?"</p>
+
+<p>M'zangwe grimaced. "I haven't had to put any of them under actual
+arrest, so far, but we've had to keep Buhrmann away from the
+communications equipment by force. He wanted to call you up and chew
+you out for not evacuating everybody in the north to Konkrook."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he crazy?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, just scared. He says you're going to get everybody on Uller
+massacred by detail, when you could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> save Konkrook by bringing them
+all here."</p>
+
+<p>"You tell him I'm going to hold this planet, not just one city. Tell
+him I have a sense of my duty to the Company and its stockholders, if
+he hasn't; put it in those terms and he may understand you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'll try that out on Meyerstein, too. He's in a hell of a state
+about the losses the Banking Cartel are taking on this deal.... Well,
+I'll call you when there's anything new."</p>
+
+<p>By 0330, it was daylight; the attacks against the northwest corner of
+the perimeter stopped entirely. Wallingsby had the three-hundred-odd
+Skilkan laborers at work; he had gathered up all the tarpaulin he
+could find, and had the two sewing-machines in the tentmaker's shop
+running on sandbags. Jules Keaveney, to von Schlichten's agreeable
+surprise, had taken hold of his ARP assignment, and was doing an
+efficient job in organizing for fire-fighting, damage-control and
+first aid. Colonel Jarman had his airjeeps and combat-cars working in
+ever-widening circles over the countryside, shooting up everything in
+sight that even looked like contragravity equipment. Some of these
+patrols had to be recalled, around 1030, when sporadic
+nuisance-sniping began from the side of the mountain to the west. And,
+along with everything else, Paula Quinton managed, along with her
+other work, to get a complete digest prepared of the situation
+elsewhere in the Terran-occupied parts of the planet.</p>
+
+<p>The situation at Konkrook was brightening steadily. The second wave of
+Kankad's improvised airlift, reenforced by contragravity from
+Konkrook, had come in; there were now close to two thousand fresh
+Kragans on Gongonk Island and the mainland farms, Kankad himself with
+them. The <i>Aldebaran</i> had reached Kankad's Town, and was loading
+another thousand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> Kragans.... There was nothing more from Keegark. A
+message from Colonel MacKinnon had come in at dawn, to the effect that
+the geeks had penetrated his last defenses and that he was about to
+blow up the Residency; thereafter Keegark went off the air.... By
+0730, the <i>Northern Star</i> had landed the regiment Murderers, armed
+with first-quality Terran infantry-rifles and a few machine-guns and
+bazookas, at the Palace at Krink, and by 0845 she had returned with
+another regiment, the Jeel-Feeders. The three-lane street connecting
+the Palace and the Residency had been widened to six, and then to
+eight.... Guido Karamessinis, at Grank, was still at uneasy peace with
+King Yoorkerk, who was still undecided whether the rebels or the
+Company were going to be the eventual victors, and afraid to take any
+irrevocable step in either direction.... Eight men and four women, the
+survivors of a trading-station on the eastern shore of Takkad Sea,
+reached Konkrook in a lorry; another trading station, on the south
+shore, reported by telecast that the natives there had refused to rise
+against them, and had crucified five of Rakkeed's disciples who had
+come among them preaching <i>znidd suddabit</i>.</p>
+
+<p>At 1100, Paula Quinton and Barney Mordkovitz virtually ordered him to
+get some sleep. He went to his quarters at Company House, downed a
+spaceship-captain's-size drink of honey-rum, and slept until 1600. As
+he dressed and shaved, he could hear, through the open window, the
+slow sputter of small-arms' fire, punctuated by the occasional
+<i>whump-whump-whump</i> of 40-mm auto-cannon or the hammering of a
+machine-gun.</p>
+
+<p>Returning to his command-post at the telecast station, the
+terrain-board showed that the perimeter of defense had been pushed out
+in a bulge at the north<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>west corner; the TV-screen pictured a crude
+breast-work of petrified tree-trunks, sandbags, mining machinery,
+packing-cases and odds-and-ends, upon which Wallingsby's native
+laborers were working under guard while a skirmish-line of Kragans had
+been thrown out another four or five hundred yards and were exchanging
+pot-shots with Skilkans on the gullied hillside.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Colonel Quinton?" he asked. "She ought to be taking a turn in
+the sack, now."</p>
+
+<p>"She's taking one," Major Falkenberg, who had commanded the action at
+the native-troops barracks and the labor-camp, the night before, told
+him. "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."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a bloody shame!" He pointed to the northwest corner of the
+perimeter on the screen. "Whose idea was that?" he asked. "It's a good
+one; I ought to have thought of it, myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Your new adjutant," Falkenberg grinned. "She asked somebody what
+those big domes, up there, were. When they told her there were ten
+thousand tons of thermoconcentrate, five thousand tons of
+blasting-explosives, and five tons of plutonium, under them, she
+damned near fainted, and then she ordered that, right away."</p>
+
+<p>More reports came in. The entire garrison of the small Residency at
+Kwurk, the most northern of the eastern shore Free Cities, had arrived
+at Kankad's Town in two hundred-foot contragravity scows and five
+aircars. Two of the aircars arrived half an hour behind the rest of
+the refugee flotilla, having turned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> off at Keegark to pay their
+respects to King Orgzild. They reported the Keegark Residency in
+ruins, its central buildings vanished in a huge crater; the <i>Jan
+Smuts</i> and the <i>Christiaan De Wett</i> were still in the Company docks,
+both apparently damaged by the blast which had destroyed the
+Residency. One of the aircars had rocketed and machine-gunned some
+Keegarkans who appeared to be trying to repair them; the other blew up
+King Orgzild's nitroglycerine plant. Von Schlichten called Konkrook
+and ordered a bombing-mission against Keegark organized, to make sure
+the two ships stayed out of service.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Northern Star</i> was still bringing loyal troops into Krink. King
+Jonkvank, whom von Schlichten called, was highly elated.</p>
+
+<p>"We are killing traitors wherever we find them!" he exulted. "The city
+is yellow with their blood; their heads are piled everywhere! How is
+it with you at Skilk?"</p>
+
+<p>"We have killed many, also," von Schlichten boasted. "And tonight, we
+will kill more; we are preparing bombs of great destruction, which we
+will rain down upon Skilk until there is not one stone left upon
+another, or one infant of a day's age left alive!"</p>
+
+<p>Jonkvank reacted as he was intended to. "Oh, no, general, don't do all
+that!" he exclaimed. "You promised me that I should have Skilk, on the
+word of a Terran. Are you going to give me a city of ruins and
+corpses? Ruins are no good to anybody, and I am not a Jeel, to eat
+corpses."</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten shrugged. "When you are strong, you can flog your
+enemies with a whip; when you are weak, all you can do is kill them.
+If I had five thousand more troops, here...."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I will send troops, as soon as I can," Jonkvank<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> hastened to
+promise. "All my best regiments: the Murderers, the Jeel-Feeders, the
+Corpse-Reapers, the Devastators, the Fear-Makers. But, now that we
+have stopped this sinful rebellion, here, I can't take chances that it
+will break out again as soon as I strip the city of troops."</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten nodded. Jonkvank's argument made sense; he would have
+taken a similar position, himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, get as many as you can over here, as soon as possible," he
+said. "We'll try to do as little damage to Skilk as we can, but ..."</p>
+
+<p>At 1830, Paula joined him for her breakfast, while he sat in front of
+the big screen, eating his dinner. There had been light ground-action
+along the southern end of the perimeter&mdash;King Firkked's regulars,
+reenforced by Zirk tribesmen and levies of townspeople, all of whom
+seemed to have firearms, were filtering in through the ruins of the
+labor-camp and the wreckage of the equipment-park&mdash;and there was
+renewed sniping from the mountainside. The long afternoon of the
+northern autumn dragged on; finally, at 2200, the sun set, and it was
+not fully dark for another hour. For some time, there was an ominous
+quiet, and then, at 0030, the enemy began attacking in force, driving
+herds of livestock&mdash;lumbering six-legged brutes bred by the North
+Ullerans for food&mdash;to test the defenses for electrified wire and
+land-mines. Most of these were shot down or blown up, but a few got as
+far as the wire, which, by now, had been strung and electrified
+completely around the perimeter.</p>
+
+<p>Behind them came parties of Skilkan regulars with long-handled
+insulated cutters; a couple of cuts were made in the wire, and a
+section of it went dead. The line, at this point, had been rather
+thinly held; the defenders immediately called for air-support, and
+Jar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>man ordered fifteen of his remaining twenty airjeeps and five
+combat-cars into the fight. No sooner were they committed than the
+radar on the commercial airport control-tower picked up air vehicles
+approaching from the north, and the air-raid sirens began howling and
+the searchlights went on.</p>
+
+<p>As a protection from the sudden fury of the summer and winter gales,
+the buildings were all low, thick-walled, and provided with steel
+doors and window-shutters which were electrically operated and
+centrally controlled. These slammed shut in every occupied building.
+The contragravity which had been sent to support the ground-defense at
+the south side of the Reservation turned to meet this new threat, and
+everything else available, including the four heavy airtanks, lifted
+up. Meanwhile, guns began firing from the ground and from rooftops.</p>
+
+<p>There had been four aircars, ordinary passenger vehicles equipped with
+machine-guns on improvised mounts, and ten big lorries converted into
+bombers, in the attack. All the lorries, and all but one of the
+makeshift fighter-escort, were shot down, but not before explosive and
+thermoconcentrate bombs were dumped all over the place. One lorry
+emptied its load of thermoconcentrate-bombs on the control-building at
+the airport, starting a raging fire and putting the radar out of
+commission. A repair-shop at the ordnance-depot was set on fire, and a
+quantity of small-arms and machine-gun ammunition piled outside for
+transportation to the outer defenses blew up. An explosive bomb landed
+on the roof of the building between Company House and the telecast
+station, blowing a hole in the roof and demolishing the upper floor.
+And another load of thermoconcentrate, missing the power-plant, set
+fire to the dry grass between it and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> the ruins of the native-troops
+barracks.</p>
+
+<p>Before the air-attack had been broken up, the soldiers of King Firkked
+and their irregular supporters were swarming through the dead section
+of wire. They had four or five big farm-tractors, nuclear-powered but
+unequipped with contragravity-generators, which they were using like
+ground-tanks of the First Century. This attack penetrated to the
+middle of the Reservation before it was stopped and the attackers
+either killed or driven out; for the first time since daybreak, the
+red-and-yellow lights came on around the power-plant.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the combined air and ground attack was beaten off, von
+Schlichten ordered all his available contragravity up, flying patrols
+around the Reservation and retaliatory bombing missions against Skilk,
+and began bombarding the city with his 90-mm guns. A number of fires
+broke out, and at about 0200 a huge expanding globe of orange-red
+flame soared up from the city.</p>
+
+<p>"There goes Firkked's thermoconcentrate stock," he said to Paula, who
+was standing beside him in front of the screen.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later, he discovered that he had been overly optimistic.
+Much of the enemy's supply of Terran thermoconcentrate had been
+destroyed, but enough remained to pelt the Reservation and the Company
+buildings with incendiaries, when a second and more severe air-attack
+developed, consisting of forty or fifty makeshift lorry-bombers and
+fifteen aircars. The previous attack von Schlichten had viewed in the
+screen at the telecast station; it was his questionable good fortune
+to observe the second one directly, having been out inspecting the
+defenses around the ordnance-depot at the time.</p>
+
+<p>Like the first, the second air-attack was beaten off,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> or, more
+exactly, down. Most of the enemy contragravity was destroyed; at least
+two dozen vehicles crashed inside the Reservation. As in the first
+instance, there was a simultaneous ground attack from the southern
+side, with a demonstration-attack at the north end. For a while, von
+Schlichten found himself fighting hand-to-hand, first with his pistol
+and then, when his ammunition was gone, with a picked-up rifle and
+bayonet. It was full daylight before the last of the attackers was
+either killed or driven out.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later, while he was reloading his pistol-clips with
+salvaged cartridges, the <i>Northern Star</i> came bulking over the
+mountains from the west.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI.</h2>
+
+<h3>Of Princedoms Which Have Been Won by Conquest</h3>
+
+
+<p>Holstering his pistol, he raced for the telecast station, to receive a
+call from a Colonel Khalid ib'n Talal, a Zanzibar Arab, aboard the
+approaching ship.</p>
+
+<p>"I've one of Jonkvank's regiments, the Jeel-Feeders, armed with Terran
+9-mm rifles and a few bazookas; I have a company of our Zirks, with
+their mounts, and a battalion of the Sixth N.U.N.I.; I also have four
+90-mm guns, Terran-manned," he reported. "What's the situation,
+general, and where do you want me to land?"</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten described the situation succinctly, in an ancient and
+unprintable military cliche. "Try landing south of the Reservation, a
+little west of the ruins of the labor-camp," he advised. "The bulk of
+Firkked's army is in that section, and I want them run out as soon as
+possible. We'll give you all the contragravity and fire support we
+can."</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Northern Star</i> let down slowly, firing her guns and dropping
+bombs; as she descended, rifle-fire spurted from all her lower-deck
+portholes. There was cheering, human and Ulleran, from inside the
+battered defense-perimeter; combat-cars, airjeeps, and improvised
+bombers lifted out to strafe the Skilkans on the ground, and the four
+airtanks moved out to take position and open fire with their 90-mm's,
+helping to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> flush King Firkked's regulars and auxiliaries out of the
+gullies and ruins and drive them south along the mountain, away from
+where the ship would land and also away from the city of Skilk. The
+<i>Northern Star</i> set down quickly, and troops and artillery began to be
+unloaded, joining in the fighting.</p>
+
+<p>It was five hundred miles to Krink; three hours after lifting out, the
+<i>Northern Star</i> was back again, with two more of King Jonkvank's
+infantry regiments, and by 1300, when the fourth load arrived from
+Krink, the fighting was entirely on the eastern bank of the dry Hoork
+River. This last contingent of reenforcements was landed in the
+eastern suburbs of Skilk and began fighting their way into the city
+from the rear.</p>
+
+<p>It was evident, however, that the pacification of Skilk would not be
+accomplished as rapidly as von Schlichten wished&mdash;street fighting,
+against a determined enemy, is notoriously slow work&mdash;and he decided
+to risk the <i>Northern Star</i> in an attack against the Palace itself,
+and, over the objections of Paula Quinton, Jules Keaveney, and Barney
+Mordkovitz, to lead the attack in person.</p>
+
+<p>Inside the city, he found that the Zirk cavalry from Krink had thrust
+up one of the broader streets to within a thousand yards of the
+Palace, and, supported by infantry, contragravity, and a couple of
+airtanks, were pounding and hacking at a mass of Skilkans whose
+uniform lack of costume prevented distinguishing between soldiery and
+townsfolk. Very few of these, he observed, seemed to be using
+firearms; with his glasses, he could see them shooting with long
+northern air-rifles and a few Takkad Sea crossbows. Either weapon
+would shoot clear through a Terran or half-way through an Ulleran at
+fifty yards, but at over two hundred they were almost harmless. There
+were a few fires still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> burning from the bombardment of the night
+before&mdash;Ulleran, and particularly North Ulleran, cities did not burn
+well&mdash;and the blaze which had consumed the bulk of Firkked's stock of
+thermoconcentrate fuel had long ago burned out, leaving an area of six
+or eight blocks blackened and lifeless.</p>
+
+<p>The ship let down, while the six combat-cars which had accompanied her
+buzzed the Palace roof, strafing it to keep it clear, and the Kragans
+aboard fired with their rifles. She came to rest on seven-eighths
+weight reduction, and even before the gangplanks were run out, the
+Kragans were dropping to the flat roof, running to stairhead
+penthouses and tossing grenades into them.</p>
+
+<p>The taking of the Palace was a gruesome business. Knowing exactly how
+much mercy they would have shown had they been storming the Residency,
+Firkked's soldiers and courtiers fought desperately and had to be
+exterminated, floor by floor, room by room, hallway by hallway. There
+was some attempt at escape from the ground floor as von Schlichten and
+his Kragans fought their way down from above, but the <i>Northern Star</i>
+and her escort of combat-cars and airjeeps bombed and machine-gunned
+and 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 a
+loyal native-officer of the Sixth N.U.N.I. shouted offers of quarter
+and orders to the troops to spare any who surrendered.</p>
+
+<p>Driving down from above, von Schlichten and his Kragans slithered over
+floors increasingly greasy with yellow Ulleran blood. He had picked up
+a broadsword at the foot of the first stairway down; a little later,
+he tossed it aside in favor of another, better balanced and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> with a
+better guard. There was a furious battle at the doorways of the throne
+room; finally, climbing over the bodies of their own dead and the
+enemy's, they were inside.</p>
+
+<p>Here there was no question of quarter whatever, at least as long as
+Firkked lived; North Ulleran nobles did not surrender under the eyes
+of their king, and North Ulleran kings did not surrender their thrones
+alive. There was also a tradition, of which von Schlichten was
+mindful, that a king must only be killed by his conqueror, in personal
+combat, with steel.</p>
+
+<p>With a wedge of Kragan bayonets around him and the picked-up
+broadsword in his hand, he fought his way to the throne, where Firkked
+waited, a sword in one of his upper hands, his Spear of State in the
+other, and a dagger in each lower hand. With his left hand, von
+Schlichten detached the bayonet from the rifle of one of his followers
+and went forward, 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 swords 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.</p>
+
+<p>It was not as bad as it looked, however. The ornate Spear of State, in
+spite of its long, cruel-looking blade, was not an especially good
+combat-weapon, at least for one hand, and Firkked seemed confused by
+the very abundance of his armament. After a few slashes and jabs, von
+Schlichten knocked the unwieldy thing from his opponent's hand. This
+raised a fearful ululation from the Skilkan nobility, who had stopped
+fighting to watch the duel; evidently it was the very worst sort of a
+bad omen. Firkked, seemingly relieved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> to be disencumbered of the
+thing, caught his sword in both hands and aimed a roundhouse swing at
+von Schlichten's head; von Schlichten dodged, crippled one of
+Firkked's lower hands with a quick slash, and lunged at the royal
+belly. Firkked used his remaining dagger to parry, backed a step
+closer to his throne, and took another swing with his sword, which von
+Schlichten parried on the bayonet in his left hand. Then, backing, he
+slashed at the inside of Firkked's leg with the thousand-year-old
+<i>coup-de-Jarnac</i>. Firkked, unable to support the weight of his
+dense-tissued body on one leg, stumbled; von Schlichten ran him neatly
+through the breast with his sword and through the throat with the
+bayonet.</p>
+
+<p>There was silence in the throne room for an instant, and then, with a
+horrible collective shriek, the Skilkans threw down their weapons. One
+of von Schlichten's Kragans slung his rifle and picked up the Spear of
+State with all four hands, taking his post ceremoniously behind the
+victor. A couple of others dragged the body of Firkked to the edge of
+the dais, and one of them drew his leaf-shaped short-sword and
+beheaded it.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"This," he said, with the geek-speaker in his mouth, "is King
+Firkked'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 was
+King in Skilk. If he had not dared raise his feeble hand against the
+might of the Uller Company, he would still be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> alive, and his Spear
+would still be borne behind him. So must all those who rise against
+the Company perish.... Cut."</p>
+
+<p>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 it
+up, like a piece of stage property no longer required for this scene
+but needed for the next. Von Schlichten took out his geek-speaker,
+wiped and pouched it, and took his cigarette case from his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, this is the limit!" Paula Quinton, who had come up during the
+filming of the scene, exploded. "I thought you had to kill him
+yourself in order to encourage your soldiers; I didn't think you
+wanted to make a movie of it to show your friends. I'm through; you
+can find yourself a new adjutant!"</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten tapped the cigarette on the gold-and-platinum case and
+stared at her through his monocle.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't resign," he told her. "Resignations of officers are not
+being accepted until the end of hostilities. In any case, I shouldn't
+care to have you go; you're the best adjutant, Hideyoshi O'Leary not
+excepted, I ever had. Sit down, colonel." He lit the cigarette. "Your
+politico-military education still needs a little filling in.</p>
+
+<p>"At Grank, we have two ships. One is the <i>Northern Lights</i>, sister
+ship of the <i>Northern Star</i>. The other is the cruiser <i>Procyon</i>, the
+only 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 of
+courts-martial, when things get stabilized to a point where we can
+afford such luxuries. As it is, we need those ships desperately, and
+as soon as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> he gets in, I'm sending Hideyoshi O'Leary to Grank with
+the <i>Northern Star</i> 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 of
+the crowbars he's going to use."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I get it!" Her eyes widened with pleasure at having finally
+caught on; she accepted the cigarette and the light von Schlichten
+offered. "Good old <i>nervenkrieg</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. A little idea I adapted from my Nazi ancestors of four hundred
+and fifty years ago. Hideyoshi's going to treat King Yoorkerk to a
+movie-show. Want to bet he won't loosen up and release <i>Procyon</i> and
+<i>Northern Lights</i> and unblockade the Grank Residency after he sees
+that shot of Firkked's head leering at him off the point of that
+overgrown asagai? As I said, that's only the last scene, too. I've
+been having scenes shot all through this fight; some of them are
+really horrifying."</p>
+
+<p>"But why did you have to fight Firkked yourself?" she asked. "You took
+an awful chance, with two hands to his four."</p>
+
+<p>"Not so awful, remember what I told you about the physical limitations
+of Ullerans. But I had to kill him myself, with a sword; according to
+local custom that makes me King of Skilk."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, your Majesty!" She rose and curtsied mockingly. "But I thought
+you were going to make Jonkvank King of Skilk."</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head. "Just Viceroy," he corrected. "I'm handing the
+Spear 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't
+be much more at Krink either. That'll take a little longer&mdash;there'll
+have to be military missions, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> economic missions, and
+trade-agreements, and all the rest of it, first&mdash;but he's on the way
+to becoming a puppet-prince."</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later, a large and excessively ornate air-launch,
+specially built at the Konkrook shipyards for King Jonkvank, was
+sighted coming over the mountain from the east. An escort of
+combat-cars was sent to meet it, and a battalion of Kragans and the
+survivors of Firkked's court were drawn up on the Palace roof.</p>
+
+<p>"His Majesty, Jonkvank, King of Krink!" the former herald of King
+Firkked's court, now herald to King Carlos von Schlichten, shouted,
+banging on a brass shield with the flat of his sword, as Jonkvank
+descended from his launch, attended by a group of his nobles and his
+Spear of State, with Hideyoshi O'Leary and Francis N. Shapiro
+shepherding them. As the guests advanced across the roof, the herald
+banged again on his shield.</p>
+
+<p>"His Majesty, Carlos von Schlichten,"&mdash;which came out more or less as
+Karlok vonk Zlikdenk&mdash;"King, by right of combat, of Skilk!"</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten advanced to meet his fellow-monarch, his own Spear of
+State, with Firkked's head still grinning from it, two paces behind
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Jonkvank stopped, his face contorted with saurian rage.</p>
+
+<p>"What is this?" he demanded. "You told me that I could be King of
+Skilk; is this how a Terran keeps his word?"</p>
+
+<p>"A Terran's word is always good, Jonkvank," von Schlichten replied,
+omitting the titles, as was proper in one sovereign addressing
+another. "My word was that you should reign in Skilk, and my word
+stands. But these things must be done decently, according to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> custom
+and law. I killed Firkked in single combat. Had I not done so, the
+Spear of Skilk would have been left lying, for any of the young of
+Firkked to pick up. Is that not the law?"</p>
+
+<p>Jonkvank nodded grudgingly. "It is the law," he admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"Good. Now, since I killed Firkked in lawful manner, his Spear is
+mine, and what is mine I can give as I please. I now give you the
+Spear of Skilk, to carry in my name, as I promised."</p>
+
+<p>The Kragan who was carrying the ceremonial weapon tossed the head of
+Firkked from the point; another Kragan kicked it aside and advanced to
+wipe the spear-blade with a rag. Von Schlichten took the Spear and
+gave it to Jonkvank.</p>
+
+<p>"This is not good!" one of the Skilkan nobles protested. He had a
+better right than any of the others to protest; he had, a few hours
+before, ridden in at the head of a company of his retainers to swear
+loyalty to the Company. "That you should rule over us, yes. You killed
+Firkked in single combat, and you are the soldier of the Company,
+which is mighty, as all here have seen. But that this foreigner be
+given the Spear of Skilk, that is not good!"</p>
+
+<p>Some of the others, emboldened by his example, were jabbering
+agreement.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, all of you!" von Schlichten shouted. "Here is no question of
+Krink 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. He
+will come and live among you, and later he will travel back and forth
+between Krink and Skilk, and he will leave the Spear of Krink in
+Krink, and the Spear of Skilk in Skilk, and in Skilk he will be a
+Skilkan."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That seemed to satisfy everybody except Jonkvank, and he had wit
+enough not to make an issue of it. He even had the Spear of Krink
+carried back aboard his launch, out of sight, and when he accompanied
+von 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 with
+von Schlichten, in the room that had been King Firkked's bedchamber,
+however, he exploded: "What is all this foolishness which you promised
+these people in my name and which I must now carry out? That I am to
+leave the Spear of Skilk in Skilk and the Spear of Krink in Krink, and
+come here to live...."</p>
+
+<p>"You wish to hold Skilk?" von Schlichten asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I intend to hold Skilk. To begin with, there shall be a great killing
+here. A very great killing: of all those who advised that fool of a
+Firkked to start this business; of those who gave shelter to the false
+prophet, Rakkeed, when he was here; of the faithless priests who gave
+ear to his abominable heresies and allowed him to spew out his
+blasphemies in the temples; of those who sent spies to Krink, to
+corrupt and pervert my soldiers and nobles; of those who...."</p>
+
+<p>"All that is as it should be," von Schlichten agreed. "Except that it
+must be done quickly and all at once, before the memories of these
+crimes fade from the minds of the people. And great care must be taken
+to kill only those who can be proven to be guilty of something; thus
+it will be said that the justice of King Jonkvank is terrible to
+evildoers but a protection and a shield to those who keep the peace
+and obey the laws. Thus you will gain the name of being a wise and
+just king. And when the priests are to be killed it should be done
+under the direction of those other priests who were faithful to the
+gods and whom King<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> Firkked drove out of their temples, and it must be
+done in the name of the gods. Thus will you be esteemed a pious, and
+not an impious, king. As to why you must be a Skilkan in Skilk, you
+heard the words of Flurknurk, and how the others agreed with him. It
+must 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 do
+so, nor must you increase the taxes, and you must not confiscate the
+estates of those who are put to death, for the death of parents is
+always forgiven before the loss of patrimonies. And you should select
+certain Skilkan nobles, and become the father of their young, and
+above all, you must leave none of the young of Firkked alive, to raise
+rebellion against you later."</p>
+
+<p>Jonkvank nodded, deeply impressed. "By the gods, Karlok vonk Zlikdenk,
+this is wisdom! Now it is to be seen why the likes of Firkked cannot
+prevail against you, or against the Company as long as you are the
+Company's upper sword-arm!"</p>
+
+<p>Honesty tempted von Schlichten, for a moment, to disclaim originality
+for the principles he had just enunciated, even at the price of trying
+to pronounce the name of Niccolo Machiavelli with a geek-speaker. On
+second thought, however, considerations of policy restrained him. If
+Jonkvank ever heard of <i>The Prince</i>, nothing would satisfy him short
+of an Ulleran translation, and von Schlichten would have been just
+about as happy over an Ulleran translation of a complete set of
+Bethe-cycle bomb specifications.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Shadow of Niflheim</h3>
+
+
+<p>The sun slid lower and lower toward the horizon behind them as the
+aircar bulleted south along the broad valley and dry bed of the Hoork
+River, nearing the zone of equal day and night. Hassan Bogdanoff drove
+while Harry Quong finished his lunch, then changed places to begin his
+own. Von Schlichten got two bottles of beer from the refrigerated
+section of the lunch-hamper and opened one for Paula Quinton and one
+for himself.</p>
+
+<p>"What are we going to do with these geeks,"&mdash;she was using the nasty
+and derogatory word unconsciously and by custom, now&mdash;"after this is
+all over? We can't just tell them, 'Jolly well played, nice game,
+wasn't it?' and go back to where we were Wednesday evening."</p>
+
+<p>"No, we can't. There's going to have to be a Terran seizure of
+political power in every part of this planet that we occupy, and as
+soon as we're consolidated around and north of Takkad Sea, we're going
+to have to move in elsewhere," he replied. "Keegark, Konkrook, and the
+Free Cities, of course, will be relatively easy. They're in arms
+against us now, and we can take them over by force. We had to make
+that deal with Jonkvank, or, rather, I did, so that will be a slower
+process, but we'll get it done in time. If I know that pair as well as
+I think I do, Jonkvank and Yoork<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>erk will give us plenty of pretexts,
+before long. Then, we can start giving them government by law instead
+of by royal decree, and real courts of justice; put an end to the
+head-payment system, and to these arbitrary mass arrests and
+tax-delinquency imprisonments that are nothing but slave-raids by the
+geek princes on their own people. And, gradually, abolish serfdom. In
+a couple of centuries, this planet will be fit to admit to the
+Federation, like Odin and Freya."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, won't that depend a lot on whom the Company sends here to take
+Harrington's place?"</p>
+
+<p>"Unless I'm much mistaken, the Company will confirm me," he replied.
+"Administration on Uller is going to be a military matter for a long
+time to come, and even the Banking Cartel and the mercantile interests
+in the Company are going to realize that, and see the necessity for
+taking political control. The Federation Government owns a bigger
+interest in the Company than the public realizes, too; they've always
+favored it. And just to make sure, I'm sending Hid O'Leary to Terra on
+the next ship, to make a full report on the situation."</p>
+
+<p>"You think it'll be cleared up by then? The <i>City of Montevideo</i> is
+due in from Niflheim in a little under three months."</p>
+
+<p>"It'll have to be cleared up by then. We can't keep this war going
+more than a month, at the present rate. Police-action, and mopping-up,
+yes, full-scale war, no."</p>
+
+<p>"Ammunition?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her in pleased surprise. "Your education has been
+progressing, at that," he said. "You know, a lot of professional
+officers, even up to field rank in the combat branches, seem to think
+that ammo comes down miraculously from Heaven, in contra<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>gravity
+lorries, every time they pray into a radio for it. It doesn't; it has
+to be produced as fast as it's expended, and we haven't been doing
+that. So we'll have to lick these geeks before it runs out, because we
+can't lick them with gunbutts and bayonets."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, how about nuclear weapons?" Paula asked. "I hate to suggest
+it&mdash;I know what they did on Mimir, and Fenris, and Midgard, and what
+they did on Terra, during the First Century. But it may be our only
+chance."</p>
+
+<p>He finished his beer and shoved the bottle into the waste-receiver,
+then got out his cigarettes.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd hate to have to make a decision like that, Paula," he told her.
+"The military use of nuclear energy is the last&mdash;well, the
+next-to-last&mdash;thing I'd want to see on Uller. Fortunately, or
+unfortunately, it's a decision I won't have to make. There isn't a
+single nuclear bomb on the planet. The Company's always refused to
+allow them to be manufactured or stockpiled here."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think there'd be any criticism of your making them, now,
+general. And there's certainly plenty of plutonium. You could make
+A-bombs, at least."</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't anybody here who even knows how to make one. Most of our
+nuclear engineers could work one up, in about three months, when we'd
+either not need one or not be alive."</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Gomes, who came in on the <i>Pretoria</i>, two weeks ago, can make
+them," she contradicted. "He built at least a dozen of them on
+Niflheim, to use in activating volcanoes and bringing ore-bearing lava
+to the surface."</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten's hand, bringing his lighter to the tip of his
+cigarette, paused for a second. Then he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> completed the operation,
+snapped it shut, and put it away.</p>
+
+<p>"When did all this happen?"</p>
+
+<p>She took time out for mental arithmetic; even a spaceship officer had
+to do that, when a question of interstellar time-relations arose.</p>
+
+<p>"About three-fifty days ago, Galactic Standard. They'd put off the
+first shot, six bombs, before I got in from Terra. I saw the second
+shot a day or so before I left Niflheim on the <i>Canberra</i>. Dr. Gomes
+had to stay over till the <i>Pretoria</i> to put off the third shot. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you run into a geek named Gorkrink, while you were on Nif?" he
+asked her. "And what sort of work was he doing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gorkrink? I don't seem to remember.... Oh, yes! He was helping Dr.
+Murillo, the seismologist. His year was up after the second shot; he
+came to Uller on the <i>Canberra</i>. Dr. Murillo was sorry to lose him. He
+understood Lingua Terra perfectly; Dr. Murillo could talk to him, the
+way you do with Kankad, without using a geek-speaker."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but what sort of work ...?"</p>
+
+<p>"Helping set and fire the A-bombs.... <i>Oh! Good Lord!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"You can say that again, and deal in Allah, Shiva, and Kali," von
+Schlichten told her. "Especially Kali.... Harry! See if you can get
+some more speed out of this can. I want to get to Konkrook while it's
+still there!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It was full dark when Konkrook came in view beyond the East Konk
+Mountains, a lurid smear on the underside of the clouds, and, at
+Gongonk Island and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> at the Company farms to the south, a couple of
+bunches of searchlights fingering about in the sky. When von
+Schlichten turned on the outside sound-pickup, he could hear the
+distant tom-tomming of heavy guns, and the crash of shells and bombs.
+Keeping the car high enough to be above the trajectories of incoming
+shells, Harry Quong circled over the city while Hassan Bogdanoff
+talked to Gongonk Island on the radio.</p>
+
+<p>The city was in a bad way. There were seventy-five to a hundred big
+fires going, and a new one started in a rising ball of
+thermoconcentrate flame while they watched. The three gun-cutters,
+<i>Elmoran</i>, <i>Gaucho</i>, and <i>Bushranger</i>, and about fifty big freight
+lorries converted to bombers, were shuttling back and forth between
+the island and the city. The Royal Palace was on fire from end to end,
+and the entire waterfront and industrial district were in flames.
+Combat-cars and airjeeps were diving in to shell and rocket and
+machine-gun streets and buildings. He saw six big bomber-lorries move
+in dignified procession to unload, one after the other, on a row of
+buildings along what the Terrans called South Tenth Street, and on the
+roofs of buildings a block away, red and blue flares were burning, and
+he could see figures, both human and Ulleran, setting up mortars and
+machine-guns.</p>
+
+<p>Landing on the top stage of Company House, on the island, they were
+met by a Terran whom von Schlichten had seen, a few days ago, bossing
+native-labor at the spaceport, but who was now wearing a major's
+insignia. He greeted von Schlichten with a salute which he must have
+learned from some movie about the ancient French Foreign Legion. Von
+Schlichten seriously returned it in kind.</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody's down in the Governor-General's of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>fice, sir," he said.
+"Your office, that is. King Kankad's here with us, too."</p>
+
+<p>He accompanied them to the elevator, then turned to a telephone; when
+von Schlichten and Paula reached the office, everybody was crowded at
+the door to greet them: Themistocles M'zangwe, his arm in a sling;
+Hans Meyerstein, the Johannesburg lawyer, who seemed to have even more
+Bantu blood than the brigadier-general; Morton Buhrmann, the
+Commercial Superintendent; Laviola, the Fiscal Secretary; a dozen or
+so other officers and civil administrators. There was a hubbub of
+greetings, and he was pleased to detect as much real warmth from the
+civil administration crowd as from the officers.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm glad to be back with you," he replied, generally. "And let
+me present Colonel Paula Quinton, my new adjutant; Hid O'Leary's on
+duty in the north.... Them, this was a perfectly splendid piece of
+work 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 behaved
+simply above praise." He turned to King Kankad, who was wearing a pair
+of automatics in shoulder-holsters for his upper hands and another
+pair in cross-body belt holsters for his lower. "And what I've said
+for anybody else goes double for you, Kankad," he added, clapping the
+Kragan on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"All he did was save the lot of us!" M'zangwe said. "We were hanging
+on by our fingernails here till his people started coming in. And
+then, after you sent the <i>Aldebaran</i>...."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the <i>Aldebaran</i>, by the way? I didn't see her when I came
+in."</p>
+
+<p>"Based on Kankad's, flying bombardment against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> Keegark, and keeping
+an eye out for those ships. Prinsloo caught the <i>De Wett</i> in the docks
+there and smashed her, but the <i>Jan Smuts</i> got away, and we haven't
+been able to locate the <i>Oom Paul Kruger</i>, either. They're probably
+both on the Eastern Shore, gathering up reenforcements for Orgzild,"
+M'zangwe said.</p>
+
+<p>"Our ability to move troops rapidly is what's kept us on top this
+long, and Orgzild's had plenty of time to realize it," von Schlichten
+said. "When we get <i>Procyon</i> down here, I'm going to send her out,
+with a screen of light scout-vehicles, to find those ships and get rid
+of them.... How's Hid been making out, at Grank, by the way? I didn't
+have my car-radio on, coming down."</p>
+
+<p>That touched off another hubbub: "Haven't you heard, general?" ...
+"Oh, my God, this is simply out of this continuum!" ... "Well, tell
+him, somebody!" ... "No, get Hid on the screen; it's his story!"</p>
+
+<p>Somebody busied himself at the switchboard. The rest of them sat down
+at the long conference-table. Laviola and Meyerstein and Buhrmann were
+especially obsequious in seating von Schlichten in Sid Harrington's
+old chair, and in getting a chair for Paula Quinton. After a while,
+the jumbled colors on the big screen resolved themselves into an image
+of Hideyoshi O'Leary, grinning like a pussy-cat beside an empty
+goldfish-bowl.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what happened?" von Schlichten asked, after they had exchanged
+greetings. "How did Yoorkerk like the movies? And did you get the
+<i>Procyon</i> and the <i>Northern Lights</i> loose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yoorkerk was deeply impressed," O'Leary replied. "His story is that
+he is and always was the true and ever-loving friend of the Company;
+he acted to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> prevent quote certain disloyal elements unquote from
+harming the people and property of the Company. <i>Procyon's</i> on the way
+to Konkrook. I'm holding <i>Northern Lights</i> here and <i>Northern Star</i> at
+Skilk; where do you want them sent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Leave <i>Northern Star</i> at Skilk, for the time being. Tell the
+Company's great and good friend King Yoorkerk that the Company expects
+him to contribute some soldiers for the campaign here and against
+Keegark, when that starts; be sure you get the best-armed and
+best-trained regiments he has, and get them down here as soon as
+possible. Don't send any of your Kragans or Karamessinis' troops here,
+though; hold them in Grank till we make sure of the quality of
+Yoorkerk's friendship."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, general, I think we can be pretty sure, now. You see, he turned
+Rakkeed the Prophet over to me...."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What</i>?" Von Schlichten felt his monocle starting to slip and took a
+firmer grip on it. "Who?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pay me, Them; he didn't drop it," Hideyoshi O'Leary said. "Why,
+Rakkeed the Prophet. Yoorkerk was holding our ships and our people in
+case we lost; he was also holding Rakkeed at the Palace in case we
+won. Of course, Rakkeed thought he was an honored guest, right up till
+Yoorkerk's guards dragged him in and turned him over to us...."</p>
+
+<p>"That geek," von Schlichten said, "is too smart for his own good. Some
+of these days he's going to play both ends against the middle and both
+ends'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 to
+sell us a ringer."</p>
+
+<p>O'Leary shook his head solemnly. "I thought of that, right away. This
+is the real article; Karamessinis' Constabulary and Intelligence
+officers certified him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> for me. What do you want me to do, send him
+down to Konkrook?"</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten shook his head. "Get the priests of the locally
+venerated gods to put him on trial for blasphemy, heresy,
+impersonating a prophet, practicing witchcraft without a license, or
+any other ecclesiastical crimes you or they can think of. Then, after
+he's been given a scrupulously fair trial, have the soldiers of King
+Yoorkerk behead him, and stick his head up over a big sign, in all
+native languages, 'Rakkeed the False Prophet.' And have audio-visuals
+made of the whole business, trial and execution, and be sure that the
+priests and Yoorkerk's officers are in the foreground and our people
+stay out of the pictures."</p>
+
+<p>"Soap and towels, for General Pontius von Pilate!" Paula Quinton
+called out.</p>
+
+<p>"That's an idea; I was wondering what to give Yoorkerk as a
+testimonial present," Hideyoshi O'Leary said. "A nice thirty-piece
+silver set!"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite appropriate," von Schlichten approved. "Well, you did a
+first-class job. I want you back with us as soon as
+possible&mdash;incidentally, you're now a brigadier-general&mdash;but not till
+the situation at Grank-Krink-Skilk is stabilized. And, eventually, you'll
+probably have to set up permanent headquarters in the north."</p>
+
+<p>After Hideyoshi O'Leary had thanked him and signed off, and the screen
+was dark again, he turned to the others.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, gentlemen, I don't think we need worry too much about the
+north, for the next few days. How long do you estimate this operation
+against Konkrook's going to take, to complete pacification, Them?"</p>
+
+<p>"How complete is complete pacification, general?" Themistocles
+M'zangwe wanted to know. "If you mean<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> to the end of organized
+resistance by larger than squad-size groups, I'd say three days, give
+or take twelve hours. Of course, there'll be small groups holding out
+for a couple of weeks, particularly in the farming country and back in
+the forest...."</p>
+
+<p>"We can forget them; that's minor-tactics stuff. We'll need to keep
+some kind of an occupation force here for some time; they can deal
+with 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 a
+campaign against the Free Cities on the Eastern Shore."</p>
+
+<p>"Begging your pardon, general, but reduce is a mild word for what we
+ought to do to Keegark," Hans Meyerstein said. "We ought to raze that
+city as flat as a football field, and then play football on it with
+King Orgzild's head."</p>
+
+<p>"Any special reason?" von Schlichten asked. "In addition to the
+Blount-Lemoyne massacre, that is?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say so, general!" Themistocles M'zangwe backed Meyerstein
+up. "Bob, you tell him."</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Robert Grinell, the Intelligence officer, got up and took the
+cigar out of his mouth. He was short and round-bodied and bald-headed,
+but he was old Terran Federation Regular Army.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, general, we've been finding out quite a bit about the genesis
+of this business, lately," he said. "From up north, it probably looked
+like an all-Rakkeed show; that's how it was supposed to look. But the
+whole thing was hatched at Keegark, by King Orgzild. We've managed to
+capture a few prominent Konkrookans"&mdash;he named half a dozen&mdash;"who've
+been made to talk, and a number of others have come in voluntarily and
+furnished information. Orgzild conceived the scheme in the beginning;
+Rakkeed was just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> the messenger-boy. My face gets the color of the
+Company trademark every time I think that the whole thing was planned
+for over a year, right under our noses, even to the signal that was to
+touch the whole thing off...."</p>
+
+<p>"The poisoning of Sid Harrington, and our announcement of his death?"
+von Schlichten asked.</p>
+
+<p>"You figured that out yourself, sir? Well, that was it." Grinell went
+on to elaborate, while von Schlichten tried to keep the impatience out
+of his face. Beside him, Paula Quinton was fidgeting, too; she was
+thinking, as he was, of what King Orgzild and Prince Gorkrink were
+doing now. "And I know positively that the order for the poisoning of
+Sid Harrington came from the Keegarkan Embassy here, and was passed
+down through Gurgurk and Keeluk to this geek here who actually put the
+poison in the whiskey."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I agree that Keegark should be wiped out, and I'd like to have
+an immediate estimate on the time it'll take to build a nuclear bomb
+to do the job. One of the old-fashioned plutonium fission A-bombs will
+do quite well."</p>
+
+<p>Everybody turned quickly. There was a momentary silence, and then
+Colonel Evan Colbert, of the Fourth Kragan Rifles, the senior officer
+under Themistocles M'zangwe, found his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"If that's an order, general, we'll get it done. But I'd like to
+remind you, first, of the Company policy on nuclear weapons on this
+planet."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm aware of that policy. I'm also aware of the reason for it. We've
+been compelled, because of the lack of natural fuel on Uller, to set
+up nuclear power reactors and furnish large quantities of plutonium to
+the geeks to fuel them. The Company doesn't want the natives here
+learning of the possibility of using<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> nuclear energy for destructive
+purposes. Well, gentlemen, that's a dead issue. They've learned it,
+thanks to our people on Niflheim, and unless my estimate is entirely
+wrong, King Orgzild already has at least one First-Century
+Nagasaki-type plutonium bomb. I am inclined to believe that he had at
+least one such bomb, probably more, at the time when orders were sent
+to his embassy here, for the poisoning of Governor-General
+Harrington."</p>
+
+<p>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 his
+own, when the others finally realized what he had told them.</p>
+
+<p>"That's impossible!" somebody down the table shouted, as though that
+would make it so. Another&mdash;one of the civil administration
+crowd&mdash;almost exactly repeated Jules Keaveney's words at Skilk: "What
+the hell was Intelligence doing, sleeping?"</p>
+
+<p>"General von Schlichten," Colonel Grinell took oblique cognizance of
+the question, "you've just made, by implication, a most grave charge
+against my department. If you're not mistaken in what you've just
+said, I deserve to be court-martialed."</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't bring charges against you, colonel; if it were a
+court-martial matter, I'd belong in the dock with you," von Schlichten
+told him. "It seems, though, that a piece of vital information was
+possessed by those who were unable to evaluate it, and until this
+afternoon, I was ignorant of its existence. Colonel Quinton, suppose
+you repeat what you told me, on the way down from Skilk."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, general, don't you think we ought to have Dr. Gomes do that?"
+Paula asked. "After all, he constructed those bombs on Niflheim, and
+it'll be he who'll have to build ours."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That's right." He looked around. "Where's Dr. Louren&ccedil;o Gomes, the
+nuclear engineer who came in on the <i>Pretoria</i>, two weeks ago? Send
+out for him, and get him in here at once."</p>
+
+<p>There was another awkward silence. Then Kent Pickering, the chief of
+the Gongonk Island power-plant, cleared his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, general, didn't you know? Dr. Gomes is dead. He was killed
+during the first half hour of the uprising."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>A Bag of Tricks We Don't Have</h3>
+
+
+<p>He flinched inwardly, and tightened his eye-muscles on the edge of the
+monocle to keep from flinching physically as well, trying to freeze
+out of his face the consternation he felt.</p>
+
+<p>"That's bad, Kent," he said. "Very bad. I'd been counting heavily on
+Dr. Gomes to design a bomb of our own."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, general, if you please." That was Air-Commodore Leslie
+Hargreaves. "You say you suspect that King Orgzild has developed a
+nuclear bomb. If that's true, it's a horrible danger to all of us. But
+I find it hard to believe that the Keegarkans could have done so, with
+their resources and at their technological level. Now, if it had been
+the Kragans, that would have been different, but...."</p>
+
+<p>"Paula, you'd better carry on and explain what you told me, and add
+anything else you can think of that might be relevant.... Is that
+sound-recorder turned on? Then turn it on, somebody; we want this
+taped."</p>
+
+<p>Paula rose and began talking: "I suppose you all understand what
+conditions are on Niflheim, and how these Ulleran native workers are
+employed; however, I'd better begin by explaining the purpose for
+which these nuclear bombs were designed and used...."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled; she realized that he needed time to think, and she was
+stalling to provide it. He drew a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> pencil and pad toward him and began
+doodling in a bored manner, deliberately closing his mind to what she
+was saying. There were two assumptions, he considered: first, that
+King Orgzild already possessed a nuclear bomb which he could use when
+he chose, and, second, that in the absence of Dr. Gomes, such a bomb
+could only be produced on Gongonk Island after lengthy experimental
+work. If both of these assumptions were true, he had just heard the
+death-sentence of every Terran on Uller. The first he did not for a
+moment doubt. The reasons for making it were too good. He dismissed it
+from further consideration and concentrated on the second.</p>
+
+<p>"... what's known as a Nagasaki-type bomb, the first type of
+plutonium-bomb developed," Paula was saying. "Really, it's a
+technological antique, but it was good enough for the purpose, and Dr.
+Gomes could build it with locally available materials...."</p>
+
+<p>That was the crux of it. The plutonium bomb, from a military
+standpoint, was as obsolete as the flintlock musket had been at the
+time of the Second World War. He reviewed, quickly, the history of
+weapons-development since the beginning of the Atomic Era. The
+emphasis, since the end of the Second World War, had all been on
+nuclear weapons and rocket-missiles. There had been the H-bomb, itself
+obsolescent, and the Bethe-cyle bomb, and the subneutron bomb, and the
+omega-ray bomb, and the nega-matter bomb, and then the end of
+civilization in the Northern Hemisphere and the rise of the new
+civilization in South America and South Africa and Australia. Today,
+the small-arms and artillery his troops were using were merely slight
+refinements on the weapons of the First Century, and all the modern
+nuclear weapons used by the Terran Federation were produced at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
+Space Navy base on Mars, by a small force of experts whose skills were
+almost as closed to the general scientific and technical world as the
+secrets of a medieval guild. The old A-bomb was an historical
+curiosity, and there was nobody on Uller who had more than a layman's
+knowledge of the intricate technology of modern nuclear weapons. There
+were plenty of good nuclear-power engineers on Gongonk Island, but how
+long would it take them to design and build a plutonium bomb?</p>
+
+<p>"... also has a good understanding of Lingua Terra," Paula was saying.
+"He and Dr. Murillo conversed bilingually, just as I've heard General
+von Schlichten and King Kankad talking to one another. I haven't any
+idea whether or not Gorkrink could read Lingua Terra, or, if so, what
+papers or plans he might have seen."</p>
+
+<p>"Just a minute, Paula," he said. "Colonel Grinell, what does your
+branch have on this Gorkrink?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 the
+story we got was that he'd fallen out of favor at court and had been
+exiled. I can see, now, that that was planted to mislead us. As to
+whether or not he can read Lingua Terra, my belief is that he can. We
+know that he can understand it when spoken. He could have learned to
+read at one of those schools Mohammed Ferriera set up, ten or fifteen
+years ago."</p>
+
+<p>"And Dr. Gomes and Dr. Murillo and Dr. Livesey left papers and plans
+lying around all over the place," Paula added. "If he went to Niflheim
+as a spy, he could have copied almost anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there you have it," von Schlichten said. "When Gorkrink found
+out that plutonium can be used<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> for bombs, he began gathering all the
+information he could. And as soon as he got home, he turned it all
+over to Pappy Orgzild."</p>
+
+<p>"That still doesn't mean that the Kee-geeks were able to do anything
+with it," Air-Commodore Hargreaves argued.</p>
+
+<p>"I think it does," von Schlichten differed. "As soon as Orgzild would
+hear about the possibility of making a plutonium bomb, he'd set up an
+A-bomb project, and don't think of it in terms of the old First
+Century Manhattan Project. There would be no problem of producing
+fissionables&mdash;we've been scattering refined plutonium over this planet
+like confetti."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, an A-bomb's a pretty complicated piece of mechanism, even if
+you have the plans for it," Kent Pickering said. "As I recall, there
+have to be several subcritical masses of plutonium, or U-235, or
+whatever, blown together by shaped charges of explosive, all of which
+have to be fired simultaneously. That would mean a lot of electrical
+fittings that I can't see these geeks making by hand."</p>
+
+<p>"I can," Paula said. "Have you ever seen the work these native
+jewelers do? And didn't you tell me about a clockwork thing they have
+at the university here, to show the apparent movements of the sun...."</p>
+
+<p>"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 electrical
+equipment."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, they could have built an A-bomb," Buhrmann said. "But did
+they?"</p>
+
+<p>"We assume they tried to. Gorkrink got back from Nif on the Canberra,
+three months ago," von Schlichten said. "If Orgzild decided to build
+an A-bomb, he wouldn't give the signal for this uprising until he
+either had one or knew he couldn't make one, and he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> wouldn't give up
+trying in only three months. Therefore, I think we can assume that he
+succeeded, and had succeeded at the time he sent Gorkrink here to get
+that four tons of plutonium we let him have, and, incidentally, to
+tell Ghroghrank to pass the word to have Sid Harrington poisoned
+according to plan."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why didn't he just use it on us at the start of the uprising?"
+Meyerstein wanted to know.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should he? Getting rid of us is only the first step in Orgzild's
+plan," Grinell said. "Back as far as geek history goes, the Kings of
+Keegark have been trying to conquer Konkrook and the Free Cities and
+make themselves masters of the whole Takkad Sea area. Let Konkrook
+wipe 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 us
+out and then move in on Konkrook. I think that as long as we're
+fighting here, he'll wait. The more damage we do to Konkrook, the
+easier it'll be for him."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten looked up at the big screen, on which the battle of
+Konkrook was being projected from an overhead pickup.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll agree on the second half of it," von Schlichten said. "And we'll
+also have to set up some kind of security-patrol system against
+bombers from Keegark. And as soon as <i>Procyon</i> gets here, we'll have
+to send her out to hunt down and destroy those two Boer-class
+freighters, the <i>Jan Smuts</i> and the <i>Kruger</i>. And we'll have to
+arrange for protection of Kankad's Town; that's sure to be another of
+Orgzild's high-priority targets. As to the action against Konkrook,
+I'll rely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> on your advice, Them. Can we delay the fall of the city for
+any length of time?"</p>
+
+<p>M'zangwe shook his head. "When we divert contragravity to
+security-patrol work, the ground action'll slow up a little, of
+course. But the geeks are about knocked out, now."</p>
+
+<p>"The hell with it, then. I doubt if we'd be able to buy much time from
+Orgzild by delaying victory in the city, and we'll probably need the
+troops 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's Martirano, and Sternberg, and Howard Fu-Chung, and Piet
+van Reenen, and...." He nodded to himself. "I can get six or eight of
+them in here in about twenty minutes; I'll have a project set up and
+working in a couple of hours. There has to be somebody qualified on
+duty at the plant, all the time, of course, but...."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, call them in. I want the bomb finished by yesterday
+afternoon. And everybody with you, and you, yourself, had better
+revert to civilian status. This isn't something you can do by the
+numbers, and I don't want anybody who doesn't know what it's all about
+pulling rank on your outfit. Go ahead, call in your gang, and let me
+know what you'll be able to do, as soon as possible."</p>
+
+<p>He turned to Hargreaves. "Les, you'll have charge of flying the
+security patrols, and doing anything else you can to keep Orgzild from
+bombing us before we can bomb him. You'll have priority on everything
+second only to Pickering."</p>
+
+<p>Hargreaves nodded. "As you say, general, we'll have to protect
+Kankad's, as well as this place. It's about five hundred miles from
+here to Kankad's, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> eight-fifty miles from Kankad's to Keegark...."</p>
+
+<p>He stopped talking to von Schlichten, and began muttering to himself,
+running over the names of ships, and the speeds and pay-load
+capacities of airboats, and distances. In about five minutes, he would
+have a programme worked out; in the meantime, von Schlichten could
+only be patient and contain himself. He looked along the table, and
+caught sight of a thin-faced, saturnine-looking man in a green shirt,
+with a colonel's three concentric circles marked on the shoulders in
+silver-paint. Emmett Pearson, the communications chief.</p>
+
+<p>"Emmett," he said, "those orbiters you have strung around this planet,
+two thousand miles out, for telecast rebroadcast stations. How much of
+a crew could be put on one of them?"</p>
+
+<p>Pearson laughed. "Crew of what, general? White mice, or trained
+cockroaches? There isn't room inside one of those things for anything
+bigger to move around."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I know they're automatic, but how do you service them?"</p>
+
+<p>"From the outside. They're only ten feet through, by about twenty in
+length, with a fifteen-foot ball at either end, and everything's in
+sections, which can be taken out. Our maintenance-gang goes up in a
+thing like a small spaceship, and either works on the outside in
+spacesuits, or puts in a new section and brings the unserviceable one
+down here to the shops."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, and what sort of a thing is this small spaceship, now?"</p>
+
+<p>"A thing like a pair of fifty-ton lorries, with airlocks between, and
+connected at the middle; airtight, of course, and pressurized and
+insulated like a spaceship. One side's living quarters for a six-man
+crew&mdash;some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>times the gang's out for as long as a week at a time&mdash;and
+the other side's a workshop."</p>
+
+<p>That sounded interesting. With contragravity, of course, terms like
+"escape-velocity" and "mass-ratio" were of purely antiquarian
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>"How long," he asked Pearson, "would it take to fit that vehicle with
+a full set of detection instruments&mdash;radar, infrared and ultra-violet
+vision, electron-telescope, heat and radiation detectors, the whole
+works&mdash;and spot it about a hundred to a hundred and fifty miles above
+Keegark?"</p>
+
+<p>"That I couldn't say, general," Emmett Pearson replied. "It'd have to
+be a shipyard job, and a lot of that stuff's clear outside my
+department. Ask Air-Commodore Hargreaves."</p>
+
+<p>"Les!" he called out. "Wake up, Les!"</p>
+
+<p>"Just a second, general." Hargreaves scribbled frantically on his pad.
+"Now," he said, raising his head. "What is it, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Emmett, here, has a junior-grade spaceship that he uses to service
+those orbital telecast-relay stations of his. He'll tell you what it's
+like. I want it fitted with every sort of detection device that can be
+crammed into or onto it, and spotted above Keegark. It should, of
+course, be high enough to cover not only the Keegark area, but
+Konkrook, Kankad's, and the lower Hoork and Konk river-valleys."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I get it." Hargreaves snatched up a phone, punched out a
+combination, and began talking rapidly into it in a low voice. After a
+while, he hung up. "All right, Mr. Pearson&mdash;Colonel Pearson, I mean.
+Have your space-buggy sent around to the shipyard. My boys'll fix it
+up." He made a note on another piece of paper. "If we live through
+this, I'm going to have a couple of supra-atmosphere ships in service
+on this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> planet.... Now, general, I have a tentative setup. We're
+going to need the <i>Elmoran</i> for patrol work south and east of
+Konkrook, and the <i>Gaucho</i> and <i>Bushranger</i> to the north and
+northeast, based on Kankad's. We'll keep the <i>Aldebaran</i> at Kankad's,
+and use her for emergencies. And we'll have patrols of light
+contragravity like this." He handed a map, with red-pencil and
+blue-pencil markings, along to von Schlichten. "Red are Kankad-based;
+blue are Konkrook-based."</p>
+
+<p>"That looks all right," von Schlichten said. "There's another thing,
+though. We want scout-vehicles to cover the Keegark area with
+radiation-detectors. These geeks are quite well aware of
+radiation-danger from fissionables, but they're accustomed to the
+ordinary industrial-power reactors, which are either very lightly
+shielded or unshielded on top. We want to find out where Orgzild's
+bomb-plant is."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, general, as soon as we can get radiation detectors sent out to
+Kankad's, we'll have a couple of fast aircars fitted with them for
+that job."</p>
+
+<p>"We have detectors, at our laboratory and reaction-plant," Kankad
+said. "And my people can make more, as soon as you want them." He
+thought for a moment. "Perhaps I should go to the town, now. I could
+be of more use there than here."</p>
+
+<p>Kent Pickering, who had been talking with his experts at a table
+apart, returned.</p>
+
+<p>"We've set up a programme, general," he said. "It's going to be a lot
+harder than I'd anticipated. None of us seem to know exactly what we
+have to do in building one of those things. You see, the uranium or
+plutonium fission-bomb's been obsolete for over four hundred years. It
+was a classified-secret matter long after its obsolescence, because it
+hadn't been rendered any the less deadly by being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> superseded&mdash;there
+was that A-bomb that the Christian Anarchist Party put together at
+Buenos Aires in 378 A.E., for instance. And then, after it was
+declassified, it had been so far superseded that it was of only
+antiquarian interest; the textbooks dealt with it only in general
+terms. The principles, of course, are part of basic nuclear science;
+the "secret of the A-bomb" was just a bag of engineering tricks that
+we don't have, and which we will have to rediscover. Design of
+tampers, design of the chemical-explosive charges to bring subcritical
+masses together, case-design, detonating mechanism, things like that."</p>
+
+<p>"The complete data on even the old Hiroshima and Nagasaki types is
+still in existence, of course. You can get it at places like the
+University of Montevideo Library, or Jan Smuts Memorial Library at
+Cape Town. But we don't have it here. We're detailing a couple of
+junior technicians to make a search of the library here on Gongonk
+Island, but we're not optimistic. We just can't afford to pass up any
+chance, even when it approaches zero-probability."</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten nodded. "That's about what I'd expected," he said. "I
+suppose Gomes got his data out of one of the dustier storage-stacks at
+Jan Smuts or Montevideo, in the first place.... Well, I still want
+that bomb finished by yesterday afternoon, but since that's
+impractical, you'll have to take a little&mdash;but as little as
+possible&mdash;longer."</p>
+
+<p>"What are we going to do about publicity on this?" Howlett, the
+personnel man, asked. "We don't want this getting out in garbled
+form&mdash;though how it could be made worse by garbling I couldn't
+guess&mdash;and having the troops watching the sky over their shoulders and
+going into a panic as soon as they saw something they didn't
+understand."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No, we don't. I've seen a couple of troop-panics," von Schlichten
+said. "There can't be anything much worse than a panic."</p>
+
+<p>"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 and
+dropped first. As to the Kragans.... What do you think, King Kankad?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell them that we are building a bomb to destroy Keegark; that we are
+running short of ammunition, and that it is our only hope of finishing
+the war before the ammunition is gone," Kankad said. "Tell them
+something of what sort of a bomb it is. But do not tell them that King
+Orgzild already has such a bomb. Old Kankad, who made me out of
+himself, told me about how our people fled in panic from the weapons
+of the Terrans, when your people and mine were still enemies. This
+thing is to the weapons they faced then as those weapons were to the
+old Kragans' spears and bows.... And when the geeks from Grank come
+here, tell them that we are winning and that if they fight well, they
+can share the loot of Konkrook and Keegark."</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten looked up at the big screen. Already, Themistocles
+M'zangwe had ordered the Channel Battery to reduce fire; the big guns
+were firing singly, in thirty-second-interval salvos. There was less
+bombing, too; contragravity was being drawn out of the battle.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we all have things to do," he said, "and I think we've
+discussed everything there is to discuss. Anybody think of anything
+we've forgotten?... Then we're adjourned."</p>
+
+<p>He and Paula Quinton took the elevator to the roof, and sat side by
+side, silently watching the conflagration that was raging across the
+channel and the nearer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> flashes of the big guns along the island's
+city side.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"If I pull this one out of the fire, I won't be a general; I'll be a
+magician," he said. "Pickering'll be a magician, I mean; he's the boy
+who'll save our bacon, if it's saveable." He looked somberly across
+the flame-reflecting water. "Let's not kid ourselves; we're just
+kicking and biting at the guards on the way up the gallows-steps."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, why stop till the trap's sprung?" she asked. "What'll happen to
+these people on this planet, after we're atomized?"</p>
+
+<p>"That I don't want to think about. Kankad's Town will get the second
+bomb; Orgzild won't dare leave the Kragans after he's wiped us out.
+Yoorkerk and Jonkvank, in the north, will turn on Keaveney and Shapiro
+and Karamessinis and Hid O'Leary and wipe them out. And when the next
+ship gets in here and they find out what happened, they'll send the
+Federation Space Navy, and this planet'll get it worse than Fenris
+did. They'll blast anything that has four arms and a face like a
+lizard...."</p>
+
+<p>Half a dozen aircars lifted suddenly from the airport and streaked
+away to the northeast. As they went past, in the light of the burning
+city, he could see that at least three of them had multiple
+rocket-launchers on top. In a matter of seconds, a gun-cutter raced
+after them, and a second, which had been over Konkrook, jettisoned a
+bomb and turned away to follow.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe that's it," Paula said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if it is, we won't be any better off anywhere else than here,"
+he told her. "Let's stay and watch."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>After what seemed like a long time, however, a twinkle of lights
+showed over the East Konk Mountains. They weren't the flashes of
+explosions; some were magnesium flares, and some were the lights of a
+ship.</p>
+
+<p>"That's <i>Procyon</i>, from Grank," he said. "Everybody gets a good mark
+for this&mdash;detection stations, interceptors, gun-cutters. If that had
+been it, there'd have been a good chance of stopping it." He felt
+better than he had since Pickering had told him that Louren&ccedil;o Gomes
+was dead. "It's a good thing Gorkrink didn't pick up any dope on
+guided missiles, while he was at it. As long as they have to deliver
+it with contragravity, we have a chance."</p>
+
+<p>They rose from the balustrade where they had been sitting, and, for
+the first time, he discovered that he had had his left arm over her
+shoulder and that she had had her right hand resting on the point of
+his right hip, just above his pistol. He picked up the folder of
+papers she had been carrying, and put her into the elevator ahead of
+him, and it was only when they parted on the living-quarters level
+that he recalled having followed the older protocol of gallantry
+rather than the precedence of military rank.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Reviewers Panned Hell Out of It</h3>
+
+
+<p>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 to
+the floor and sprinted for the bathroom. While he was fussing to get
+the shower adjusted to the right temperature, he bludgeoned his
+conscience by telling himself that a wide-awake general is more good
+than a half-asleep general, that there was nothing he could do but
+hope that Hargreaves's patrols would keep the bomb away from Konkrook
+until Pickering's brain-trust came up with one of their own, and that
+the fact that the commander-in-chief was making sack-time would be
+much better for morale than the spectacle of him running around in
+circles. He shaved carefully; a stubble of beard on his chin might
+betray the fact that he was worried. Then he dressed, put his monocle
+in his eye, and called the headquarters that had been set up in Sid
+Harrington's&mdash;now his&mdash;office. A girl at the switchboard appeared on
+his screen, and gave place to Paula Quinton, who had been up for the
+past two hours.</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>Northern Lights</i> got in about three hours ago, general," she
+told him. "She had four of King Yoorkerk's infantry regiments
+aboard&mdash;the Seventh, Glorious-and-Terrible, the Fourth,
+Firm-in-Adversity, the Second, Strength-of-the-Throne, and the
+Twelfth, Forever-Admirable. They're the sorriest-looking rab<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>ble I
+ever saw, but Hideyoshi says they're the best Yoorkerk has, and they
+all have Terran-style rifles. General M'zangwe broke them into
+battalions, and put a battalion in with each of the Kragan regiments.
+I think they're more afraid of the Kragans than they are of the
+rebels."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded. That was probably the best way to employ them, within the
+existing situation. The trouble was, Them M'zangwe was incurably
+tactical-minded. Put those geeks of Yoorkerk's in with the Kragans and
+they'd be most useful in conquering Konkrook, but the trouble was
+that, after associating with Kragans, they might develop into
+reasonably good troops themselves, to the undesired improvement of
+King Yoorkerk's army. On the other hand maybe not. Keep them in
+Company service long enough, and they might want to forget about
+Yoorkerk and stay there.</p>
+
+<p>"How's the situation over in town?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's slowing up, since we began pulling contragravity out," she
+told him, "but the geeks are breaking up rapidly.... Oh, there was
+something funny about that hassle, last evening, when the <i>Procyon</i>
+came in. Two contragravity vehicles, an aircar and an air-lorry, that
+went out to meet the ship, are unaccounted for."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean two of our vehicles are missing?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head, frowning in perplexity. "Well, no. All the
+vehicles that answered that unidentified-aircraft alert returned, but
+there were these two that went out that we haven't any record of.
+Colonel Grinell is investigating, but he can't find out anything...."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him not to waste any more time," he said. "Those two were
+probably geeks from Konkrook. You know, that's how the von Schlichten
+family got out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> of Germany, in the Year Three&mdash;flew a bomber to Spain.
+The Konkrook war-criminals are getting out before the Army of
+Occupation moves in."</p>
+
+<p>"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 from
+Konkrook agree that resistance is getting weaker every hour.... And
+the supra-atmosphere observation-craft&mdash;they're beginning to call her
+the <i>Sky-Spy</i>&mdash;is up a hundred and fifty miles over Keegark. We have
+radar and vision screens and telemetered radiation and other detectors
+here, tuned to her. They're installing a similar set on the <i>Northern
+Lights</i> at the shipyard. By the way, Air-Commodore Hargreaves wants to
+know if he can take a pair of 155-mm rifles from the Channel Battery
+and mount them on the <i>Lights</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course, he can have anything he wants, as long as it isn't
+urgently needed for the bomb project."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Sky-Spy</i> reports normal contragravity traffic between Keegark and
+the farming-villages around&mdash;aircars, lorries, a few scows&mdash;but
+nothing suspicious. No trace of either of the Boer-class ships.
+Kankad's people are building receiving sets to install on the
+<i>Procyon</i> and the <i>Aldebaran</i>, and another set for Kankad's Town.
+Pickering and his people are still working, but they all look pretty
+frustrated. They have Major Thornton, at the ammunition plant, doing
+experimental work on chemical-explosive charges to bring the
+subcritical masses together and hold them together till an explosion
+can be produced; they're using most of the skilled electrical and
+electronics people to work up a detonating device. That's why Kankad's
+people are doing most of the detection-device work. Hargreaves is
+fitting a lot of small craft<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>&mdash; combat-cars and civilian aircars&mdash;with
+radar sets, to use for patrolling."</p>
+
+<p>"That sounds good," von Schlichten said. "I'll be around and see how
+things are, after I've had some breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>He had breakfast at the main cafeteria, four floors down; there wasn't
+as much laughing and talking as usual, but the crowd there seemed in
+good spirits. He spent some time at headquarters, watching Keegark by
+TV and radar. So far, nothing had been done about direct
+reconnaissance over Keegark with radiation-detectors, but Hargreaves
+reported that a couple of privately owned aircars were being fitted
+for the job.</p>
+
+<p>He made a flying inspection trip around the island, and visited the
+farms south of the city, on the mainland, and, finally, made a sweep
+in the command-car over the city itself. Reconnaissance in person was
+an archaic and unprogressive procedure, and it was a good way to get
+generals killed, but one could see a lot of things that would be
+missed on TV. He let down several times in areas that had already been
+taken, and talked to company and platoon officers. For one thing, King
+Yoorkerk's flamboyantly named regiments weren't quite as bad as Paula
+had thought. She'd been spoiled by the Kragans in her appreciation of
+other native troops. They had good, standard-quality, Volund-made
+arms; they were brave and capable; and they had been just enough
+insulted by being integrated into Kragan regiments to try to make a
+good showing.</p>
+
+<p>By noon, resistance in the city was beginning to cave in. Surrender
+flags were appearing on one after another of the Konkrookan rebel
+strong-points, and at 1430, after he had returned to the Island, a
+delegation, headed by the Konkrookan equivalent of Lord<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> Mayor and
+composed largely of prominent merchants, came across the channel under
+a flag of truce to surrender the city's Spear of State, with abject
+apologies for not having Gurgurk's head on the point of it. Gurgurk,
+they reported, had fled to Keegark by air the night before, which
+explained the incident of the unaccountable aircar and lorry. The
+Channel Battery stopped firing, and, with the exception of an
+occasional spatter of small-arms fire, the city fell silent.</p>
+
+<p>At 1600, von Schlichten visited the headquarters Pickering had set up
+in the office building at the power-plant. As he stepped off the lift
+on the third floor, a girl, running down the hall with her arms full
+of papers in folders, collided with him; the load of papers flew in
+all directions. He stooped to help her pick them up.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, general! Isn't it wonderful?" she cried. "I just can't believe
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't what wonderful?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't you know? They've got it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Huh? They have?" He gathered up the last of the big envelopes and
+gave them to her. "When?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just half an hour ago. And to think, those books were around here all
+the time, and.... Oh, I've got to run!" She disappeared into the lift.</p>
+
+<p>Inside the office, one of Pickering's engineers was sitting on the
+middle of his spinal column, a stenograph-phone in one hand and a book
+in the other. Once in a while, he would say something into the
+mouthpiece of the phone. Two other nuclear engineers had similar books
+spread out on a desk in front of them; they were making notes and
+looking up references in the <i>Nuclear Engineers' Handbook</i>, and making
+calculations with their sliderules. There was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> huddle around the
+drafting-boards, where two more such books were in use.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what's happened?" he demanded, catching Pickering by the arm as
+he rushed from one group to another.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! We have it!" Pickering cried. "Everything we need! Look!"</p>
+
+<p>He had another of the books under his arm. He held it out to von
+Schlichten, and von Schlichten suddenly felt sicker than he had ever
+felt since, at the age of fourteen, he had gotten drunk for the first
+time. He had seen men crack up under intolerable strain before, but
+this was the first time he had seen a whole roomful of men blow their
+tops in the same manner.</p>
+
+<p>The book was a novel&mdash;a jumbo-size historical novel, of some seven or
+eight hundred pages. Its dust-jacket bore a
+slightly-more-than-bust-length picture of a young lady with crimson
+hair and green eyes and jade earrings and a plunging&mdash;not to say
+power-diving&mdash;neckline that left her affiliation with the class of
+Mammalia in no doubt whatever. In the background, a mushroom-topped
+smoke-column rose, and away from it something intended to be a
+four-motor propeller-driven bomber of the First Century was racing
+madly. The title, he saw, was <i>Dire Dawn</i>, and the author was one
+Hildegarde Hernandez.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it has a picture of an A-bomb explosion on it," he agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"It has more than that; it has the whole business. Case
+specifications, tampers, charge design, detonating device, everything.
+Why, the end-papers even have diagrams, copies of the original
+Nagasaki-bomb drawings. Look."</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten looked. He had no more than the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> average intelligent
+layman's knowledge of nuclear physics&mdash;enough to recharge or repair a
+conversion-unit&mdash;but the drawings looked authentic enough. They seemed
+to 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.</p>
+
+<p>"And look at this!" Pickering opened at a marked page and showed it to
+him. "And this!" He opened where another slip of paper had been
+inserted. "Everything we want to know, practically."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't get this." He wasn't sick, anymore, just bewildered. "I read
+some reviews of this thing. All the reviewers panned hell out of
+it&mdash;'World War II Through a Bedroom Keyhole'; 'Henty in Black Lace
+Panties'&mdash;that sort of thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Yeh, yeh, sure," Pickering agreed. "But this Hernandez had illusions
+of being a great serious historical novelist, see. She won't try to
+write a book till she's put in years of research&mdash;actually, about six
+months' research by a herd of librarians and college-juniors and other
+such literary coolies&mdash;and she boasts that she never yet has been
+caught in an error of historical background detail.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, this opus is about the old Manhattan Project. The heroine is a
+sort of super-Mata-Hari, who is, alternately and sometimes
+simultaneously, in the pay of the Nazis, the Soviets, the Vatican,
+Chiang Kai-Shek, the Japanese Emperor, and the Jewish International
+Bankers, and she sleeps with everybody but Joe Stalin and Mao
+Tse-tung, and of course, she is in on every step of the A-bomb
+project. She even manages to stow away on the <i>Enola Gay</i>, with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
+help of a general she's spent fifty incandescent pages seducing.</p>
+
+<p>"In order to tool up for this production-job, La Hernandez did her
+researching just where Louren&ccedil;o Gomes probably did his&mdash;University of
+Montevideo Library. She even had access to the photostats of the old
+U.S. data that General Lanningham brought to South America after the
+debacle in the United States in A.E. 114. Those end-papers are part of
+the Lanningham stuff. As far as we've been able to check
+mathematically, everything is strictly authentic and practical. We'll
+have to run a few more tests on the chemical-explosive charges&mdash;we
+don't have any data on the exact strength of the explosives they used
+then&mdash;and the tampers and detonating device will need to be tested a
+little. But in about half an hour, we ought to be able to start
+drawing plans for the case, and as soon as they're finished, we'll
+rush them to the shipyard foundries for casting."</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten handed the book back to Pickering, and sighed deeply.
+"And I thought everybody here had gone off his rocker," he said. "We
+will erect, on the ruins of Keegark, a hundred-foot statue of Se&ntilde;orita
+Hildegarde Hernandez.... How did you get onto this?"</p>
+
+<p>Pickering pointed to a young man with dull brick colored hair, who was
+punching out some kind of a problem on a small computing machine.</p>
+
+<p>"Piet van Reenen, over there, he has a girl-friend whose taste runs to
+this sort of literary bubble-gum. She told him it was all in a book
+she'd just read, and showed him. We descended in force on the bookshop
+and grabbed every copy in stock. We are now running a sort of
+gaseous-diffusion process, to separate the nuclear physics from the
+pornography. I must say,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> Hildegarde has her biological data very well
+in hand, too."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet she'd have fun writing a novel about these geeks," von
+Schlichten said. "Well, how soon do you think you can have a bomb
+ready for us?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 the
+most. By two weeks, we'll be turning them out on an assembly-line."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope we don't need more than one. But you'd better produce at least
+half a dozen. And have some practice-bombs made up, out of concrete or
+anything, as long as they're the right weight and airfoil and have
+some way of releasing smoke. Get them done as soon as you have your
+case designed. We want to be able to make a couple of practice drops."</p>
+
+<p>There was no use, he thought, of raising hopes which might prove
+premature. He told Paula Quinton, of course, and Themistocles
+M'zangwe, and, by telecast on sealed beam, King Kankad and
+Air-Commodore Hargreaves. Beyond that, there was nothing to do but
+wait, and hope that Hargreaves could keep Orgzild's bombers away from
+Gongonk Island and Kankad's Town and that Hildegarde Hernandez had
+been playing fair with her public. He visited the city, where a few
+pockets of diehard resistance were being liquidated, and where
+everybody who had not been too deeply and publicly involved in the
+<i>znidd suddabit</i> conspiracy was now coming forward and claiming to
+have been a lifelong friend of the Terrans and the Company. Von
+Schlichten returned to Gongonk Island, debating with himself whether
+to declare a general amnesty or to set up a dozen guillotines in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+city and run them around the clock for a week. There were cogent
+arguments for and against either procedure.</p>
+
+<p>By 2100, the last organized resistance had been wiped out, and curfew
+had been imposed, and peace of a sort restored. There was still the
+threat from Keegark, but it was looking less ominous now than it had
+the evening before. Von Schlichten and Paula were having dinner in the
+Broadway Room, confident that there was nothing left to do that they
+could do anything about, when the extension phone that had been
+plugged in at their table rang.</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Quinton here," Paula identified herself into it, and listened
+for a moment. "There has? When?... Well, where did it come from?... I
+see. And the direction?... Anything else?"</p>
+
+<p>Apparently there was nothing else. She hung up, and turned to von
+Schlichten.</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>Sky-Spy</i> just detected a ship lifting out from Keegark, presumed
+one of the Boer-class freighters, either the <i>Jan Smuts</i> or the <i>Oom
+Paul Kruger</i>. It was first picked up on contragravity at about a
+hundred feet, rising vertically from near the Palace. The supposition
+is the geeks had her camouflaged since the time Commander Prinsloo
+first bombarded Keegark with the <i>Aldebaran</i>. That was about twenty
+minutes ago; at last report, she's fifty miles north of Keegark,
+headed up the Hoork River."</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten started thinking aloud: "That could be a feint, to draw
+our ships north after her, and leave the approach to Konkrook or
+Kankad's open, but that would be presuming that they know about the
+<i>Sky-Spy</i>, and I doubt that, though not enough to take chances on.
+They know we have ground and ship-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>radar, and they may think they can
+slip down the Konk Valley either undetected or mistaken for one of our
+ships from North Uller."</p>
+
+<p>He picked up the phone. "Get me through on telecast to Air-Commodore
+Hargreaves, aboard the <i>Procyon</i>," he said. "I'll take it in the
+office; I'll be up directly." He rose. "Finish your dinner, and have
+the rest of mine sent up," he told Paula.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the elevator, he rushed into the big headquarters room just as
+contact was established with the <i>Procyon</i>, on station over the
+northwestern corner of Takkad Sea, between Kankad's Town and Keegark.
+The <i>Aldebaran</i>, he knew, was west of Keegark; the <i>Northern Lights</i>,
+now fitted with a pair of 155-mm guns, in addition to her 90's, had
+just arrived at Kankad's. He had the <i>Aldebaran</i> sent north along the
+crest of the mountain-range between the Hoork and Konk river-valleys,
+where she could cover both with her own radar and other
+detection-devices and exchange information with the <i>Sky-Spy</i>, and the
+<i>Gaucho</i> sent in what looked like the right course to intercept the
+Boer-class freighter from Keegark. The <i>Northern Lights</i>, also with
+screens tuned to the <i>Sky-Spy</i>, was sent to take over the
+<i>Aldebaran's</i> regular station. Finally, he called Skilk and had the
+<i>Northern Star</i> sent south down the Hoork Valley.</p>
+
+<p>After that, there was nothing to do but wait, and watch the screens.
+Paula Quinton put in an appearance shortly after he had finished
+calling Skilk, pushing a cocktail-wagon on which their interrupted
+dinners had been placed. They finished eating, and drank coffee, and
+smoked. Most of the rest of his staff who were not busy on the
+bomb-project or at the shipyards or with the occupation of Konkrook
+drifted in; they all sat and stared from one to another of the
+screens,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> which told, in radar-patterns and direct vision and
+telescopic vision and heat and radiation detection, the story of what
+was going on to the northeast of them.</p>
+
+<p>Keegark was dark, on the vision-screen; evidently King Orgzild had
+invented the blackout, too. Not that it did him any good; the
+radar-screen showed the city clearly, and it was just as clear on the
+radiation and heat-screens. The Keegarkan ship was completely blacked
+out, but the radiations from her engines and the distinctive
+radiation-pattern of her contragravity-field showed clearly, and there
+was a speck that marked her position on the radar-screen. The same
+position was marked with a pin-point of light on the
+vision-screen&mdash;some device on the <i>Sky-Spy</i>, synchronized with the
+detectors, kept it focused there. The Company ships and contragravity
+vehicles all were carrying topside lights, visible only from above,
+which flashed alternate red and blue to identify them.</p>
+
+<p>Time crawled slowly around the clock-face on the wall, the
+sixty-five-second minutes of Uller dragging like hours. The spots that
+marked the enemy ship and her hunters crawled, too; seen from the
+hundred-and-fifty-mile altitude of the <i>Sky-Spy</i>, even the
+six-hundred-mile speed of the <i>Gaucho</i> was barely visible. They drank
+coffee till the stuff revolted them; they smoked until their throats
+and mouths were dry, they watched the screens until they thought that
+they would see them in their dreams forever. Then the <i>Gaucho</i>
+reported radar-contact with the Keegarkan ship, which had begun to
+turn in a hairpin-shaped course and was coming south down the Konk
+Valley.</p>
+
+<p>After that, the <i>Gaucho</i> began reporting directly, and her topside
+identification-light went out.</p>
+
+<p>"... doused our lights; we're down in the valley, altitude about a
+thousand feet. We're trying to get a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> glimpse of her against the sky,"
+a voice came in. "We're cutting in our forward TV-pickup." The voice
+repeated, several times, the wavelength, and somebody got an auxiliary
+screen tuned in. There was nothing visible on it but the darkness of
+the valley, the star-jeweled sky, and the loom of the East Konk
+Mountains. "We still can't see her, but we ought to, any moment; radar
+shows her well above the mountains. Ah, there she is; she just
+obscured Beta Hydrae V; she's moving toward that big constellation to
+the east of it, the one they call Finnegan's Goat. Now she'll be right
+in the center of the screen; we're going straight for her. We're going
+to try to slow her down till the <i>Aldebaran</i> can get here...."</p>
+
+<p>The enemy ship was vaguely visible, now, becoming clearer in the
+starlight. She was a Boer-class freighter, all right. Probably the
+<i>Jan Smuts</i>; the <i>Oom Paul Kruger</i> had last been reported at Bwork,
+and there was little chance that she had slipped into Keegark since
+the uprising had started. For all anybody knew, she could have been
+destroyed in the fighting before the Bwork Residency fell.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, we have her spotted; we're going to open up on her," the
+voice from the <i>Gaucho</i> announced. "She has two 90's to our one; we'll
+try to disable them, first." The vision-screen lit with the indirect
+glare of the gun-flash, and the image in it jiggled violently as the
+ship shook to the recoil, then steadied again, with the enemy ship
+visible in the middle of it, growing larger and larger as the <i>Gaucho</i>
+rushed toward her. The gun fired again and again, flooding the screen
+with momentary yellow light and disturbing the image as the recoil
+shook the gun-cutter. The enemy ship began firing in reply, the shots
+were all wide misses. Apparently the geek guncrew didn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> know how to
+synchronize the radar sights, and were ignorant of the correct setting
+for the proximity-fuses. The <i>Gaucho</i>'s searchlights came on, bathing
+her quarry in light. It was the <i>Jan Smuts</i>; the name and the
+figurehead-bust of the old soldier-philosopher were plainly visible.
+Her forward gun had been knocked out, and she was trying to swing
+about to get a field of fire for her stern-gun.</p>
+
+<p>"We're going to give her a rocket-salvo," the voice said. "Watch this,
+now!"</p>
+
+<p>The rockets leaped forward, from the topside racks, four and four and
+four and four, at half-second intervals. The first four hit the
+<i>Smuts</i> amidships and low, exploding with a flare that grew before it
+could die away as the second four landed. Nobody ever saw the third
+and fourth four land. The <i>Jan Smuts</i> vanished in a blaze of light
+that blinded everybody in the room; when they could see again, after
+some thirty seconds, the screen was dark.</p>
+
+<p>In the direct-vision screen from the <i>Sky-Spy</i>, the whole countryside
+of the Konk Valley, five hundred miles north of Konkrook, was lighted.
+The heat and radiation detectors were going insane. And in the
+shifting confusion on the radar-screen, there was no trace either of
+the <i>Jan Smuts</i> or the <i>Gaucho</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the geeks did have an A-bomb," Themistocles M'zangwe said, at
+length. "I'd been trying to kid myself that we were just preparing
+against a million-to-one chance. I wonder how many more they have."</p>
+
+<p>"Paula, find out who was in command of the <i>Gaucho</i>; he'd be a
+junior-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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> that
+cutter. Authority Carlos von Schlichten, acting Governor-General." He
+picked up a phone. "Get me Commander Prinsloo, on <i>Aldebaran</i>...."</p>
+
+<p>He ordered Prinsloo to launch airboats and make a search; cautioned
+him to be careful of radiation, but to take no chances on any of the
+<i>Gaucho</i>'s complement being still alive and in need of help. While
+that was going on, the <i>Sky-Spy</i> reported another ship coming over her
+horizon to the east, from the direction of Bwork. That would be the
+<i>Oom Paul Kruger</i>. Hargreaves had already learned of the advent of the
+second freighter. He was unwilling to take the <i>Procyon</i> off her
+station until the <i>Aldebaran</i> returned from the Konk Valley. In this,
+von Schlichten concurred.</p>
+
+<p>Somebody suggested that a drink would be in order. They had just
+watched the all-but-certain death of three Terran officers, fifteen
+Terran airmen, and ten Kragans, but they had all been living in too
+close companionship with death in the past three days&mdash;or was it three
+centuries&mdash;to be too deeply affected. And they had also watched, at
+least for a day or so, the removal of the threat that had hung over
+their heads. And they had seen proof that they had a defense against
+King Orgzild's bombs.</p>
+
+<p>They were still mixing cocktails when Pickering phoned in.</p>
+
+<p>"Some good news, general, from Operation 'Hildegarde.' We ought to
+have at least one bomb ready to drop by 1500 tomorrow, four or five
+more by next midnight," he said. "We don't need to have cases cast. We
+got our dimensions decided, and we find that there are a lot of big
+empty liquid-oxygen flasks, or tanks, rather, at the spaceport,
+that'll accommodate everything&mdash;fissionables, explosive-charges,
+tampers, detonator, and all."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, go ahead with it. Make up a few of them; as many as you can
+between now and 2400 Sunday." He thought for a moment. "Don't waste
+time on those practice bombs I mentioned. We'll make a practice drop
+with a live bomb. And don't throw away the design for the cast case.
+We may need that, later on."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV.</h2>
+
+<h3>A Place in my Heart for Hildegarde</h3>
+
+
+<p>The company fleet hung off Keegark, at fifteen thousand feet, in a
+belt of calm air just below the seesawing currents from the warming
+Antarctic and the cooling deserts of the Arctic. There was the
+<i>Procyon</i>, from the bridge of which von Schlichten watched the
+movements of the other ships and airboats and the distant horizon. The
+<i>Aldebaran</i> was ten miles off, to the west, her metal sheathing
+glinting in the red light of the evening sun. There was the <i>Northern
+Star</i>, down from Skilk, a smaller and more distant twinkle of
+reflected light to the north of <i>Aldebaran</i>. The <i>Northern Lights</i> was
+off to the east, and between her and <i>Procyon</i> was a fifth ship;
+turning the arm-mounted binoculars around, he could just make out, on
+her bow, the figurehead bust of a man in an ancient tophat and a
+fringe of chin-beard. She was the <i>Oom Paul Kruger</i>, captured by the
+<i>Procyon</i> after a chase across the mountains northeast of Keegark the
+day before. And, remote from the other ships, to the south, a tiny
+speck of blue-gray, almost invisible against the sky, and a smaller
+twinkle of reflected sunlight&mdash;a garbage-scow, unflatteringly but
+somewhat aptly rechristened <i>Hildegarde Hernandez</i>, which had been
+altered as a bomb-carrier, and the gun-cutter <i>Elmoran</i>. With the
+glasses, he could see a bulky cylinder being handled off the scow and
+loaded onto the improvised bomb-catapult<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> on the <i>Elmoran</i>'s stern.
+Shortly thereafter, the gun-cutter broke loose from the tender and
+began to approach the fleet.</p>
+
+<p>"General, I must protest against your doing this," Air-Commodore
+Hargreaves said. "There's simply no sense in it. That bomb can be
+dropped without your personal supervision aboard, sir, and you're
+endangering yourself unnecessarily. That infernal machine hasn't been
+tested or anything; it might even let go on the catapult when you try
+to drop it. And we simply can't afford to lose you, now."</p>
+
+<p>"No, what would become of us, if you go out there and blow yourself up
+with that contraption?" Buhrmann supported him. "My God, I thought Don
+Quixote was a Spaniard, instead of a German!"</p>
+
+<p>"Argentino," von Schlichten corrected. "And don't try to sell me that
+Irreplaceable Man line, either. Them M'zangwe can replace me, Hid
+O'Leary can replace him, Barney Mordkovitz can replace him, and so on
+down to where you make a second lieutenant out of some sergeant. We've
+been all over this last evening. Admitted we can't take time for a
+long string of test-shots, and admitted we have to use an untested
+weapon; I'm not sending men out under those circumstances and staying
+here on this ship and watch them blow themselves up. If that bomb's
+our only hope, it's got to be dropped right, and I'm not going to take
+a chance on having it dropped by a crew who think they've been sent
+out on a suicide mission. What happened to the <i>Gaucho</i> when she blew
+the <i>Smuts</i> up is too fresh in everybody's mind. But if I, who ordered
+the mission, accompany it, they'll know I have some confidence that
+they'll come back alive."</p>
+
+<p>"Well I'm coming along, too, general," Kent Pickering spoke up. "I
+made the damned thing, and I ought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> to be along when it's dropped, on
+the principle that a restaurant-proprietor ought to be seen eating his
+own food once in a while."</p>
+
+<p>"I still don't see why we couldn't have made at least one test shot,
+first," Hans Meyerstein, the Banking Cartel man, objected.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll tell you why," Paula Quinton spoke up. "There's a good
+chance that the geeks don't know we have a bomb of our own. They may
+believe that it was something invented on Niflheim for mining
+purposes, and that we haven't realized its military application.
+There's more than a good chance that the loss of the <i>Jan Smuts</i> has
+temporarily demoralized them. Personally, I believe that both King
+Orgzild and Prince Gorkrink were aboard her when she blew up. That's
+something we'll never know, positively, of course. That ship and
+everything and everybody in her were simply vaporized, and the
+particles are registering on our geigers now. But I'm as sure as I am
+of anything about these geeks that one or both of them accompanied
+her."</p>
+
+<p>"Paula knows what she's talking about," King Kankad jabbered in the
+Takkad Sea language which they all understood. "Just like Von saying
+that he has to go on our cutter, to encourage the crew. They always
+insist that their kings and generals go into battle, particularly if
+something important is to be done. They think the gods get angry if
+they don't."</p>
+
+<p>"And we have to hit them now," von Schlichten said. "They still have a
+couple of bombs left. We haven't been able to locate them with
+detectors, 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't
+take a chance that some fanatic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> may load one into an aircar and make
+a kamikaze-raid on Gongonk Island."</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Elmoran</i> ran alongside, with her Masai-warrior figurehead and the
+black cylinder on her catapult aft. Somebody had painted, on the bomb:
+DIRE DAWN <i>by Hildegarde Hernandez. Compliments of the author to H.M.
+King Orgzild of Keegark.</i> A canvas-entubed gangway was run out to
+connect the ship with the cutter. Von Schlichten and Kent Pickering
+went down the ladder from the bridge, the others accompanying them. As
+he stepped into the gangway, Paula Quinton fell in behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you think you're going?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Along with you," she replied. "I'm your adjutant, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"You definitely are not going along. Personally, I don't believe
+there's any danger, but I'm not having you run any unnecessary
+risks...."</p>
+
+<p>"Von, I don't know much about the way Terrans think, except about
+fighting and about making things," Kankad told him. "And I don't know
+anything at all about the kind of Terrans who have young. But I
+believe 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 will
+ever be happy again."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, colonel, objection withdrawn," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Aboard the <i>Elmoran</i>, they gave the bomb a last-minute inspection and
+checked the catapult and the bomb-sight, and then went up on the
+bridge.</p>
+
+<p>"Ready for the bombing mission, sir?" the skipper,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> a Lieutenant
+(j.g.) Morrison, asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Ready if you are, lieutenant. Carry on; we're just passengers."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, sir. We'd thought of going in over the city at about five
+thousand for a target-check, turning when we're half-way back to the
+mountains, and coming back for our bombing-run at fifteen thousand. Is
+that all right, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Von Schlichten nodded. "You're the skipper, lieutenant. You'd better
+make sure, though, that as soon as the bomb-off signal is flashed,
+your engineer hits his auxiliary rocket-propulsion button. We want to
+be about fifteen miles from where that thing goes off."</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant (j.g.) muttered something that sounded unmilitarily
+like, "You ain't foolin', brother!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not," von Schlichten agreed. "I saw the <i>Jan Smuts</i> on the
+TV-screen."</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Elmoran</i> pointed her bow, and the long blade of the figurehead
+warrior'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 a
+color-splashed triangle between the river and the bay and the hills on
+the landward side, and then it took shape, cross-ruled with streets
+and granulated with buildings. As they came in, von Schlichten, who
+had approached it from the air many times before, could distinguish
+the landmarks&mdash;the site of King Orgzild's nitroglycerin plant, now a
+crater surrounded by a quarter-mile radius of ruins; the Residency,
+another crater since Rodolfo MacKinnon had blown it up under him; the
+smashed <i>Christiaan De Wett</i> at the Company docks; King Orgzild's
+Palace, fire-stained and with a hole blown in one corner by the
+<i>Aldebaran</i>'s bombs.... Then they were past the city and over open
+country.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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 anything
+significant when we flew reconnaissance with the radiation detectors."</p>
+
+<p>"No, about all that was picked up was the main power-plant, and the
+radiation-escape from there was normal," Pickering agreed. "The bombs
+themselves wouldn't be detectable, except to the extent that, say, a
+nuclear-conversion engine for an airboat would be. They probably have
+them underground, somewhere, well shielded."</p>
+
+<p>"Those prisoners Kankad's commandos dragged in only knew that they
+were in the city somewhere," von Schlichten considered. "How about
+midway between the Palace and the Residency for our ground-zero,
+lieutenant? That looks like the center of the city."</p>
+
+<p>The cutter turned and started back, having risen another ten thousand
+feet. Morrison passed the word to the bombardier. The city, with the
+sea beyond it now, came rushing at them, and von Schlichten, standing
+at the front of the bridge, discovered that he had his arm around
+Paula's waist and was holding her a little more closely than was
+military. He made no attempt to release her, however.</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing to worry about, really," he was assuring her.
+"Pickering's boys built this thing according to the best principles of
+engineering, and the stuff they got out of that big-economy-size
+shilling-shocker all checked mathematically...."</p>
+
+<p>The red light on the bridge flashed, and the intercom shouted, "<i>Bomb
+off!</i>" He forced Paula down on the bridge deck and crouched beside
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Cover your eyes," he warned. "You remember what the flash was like in
+the screen when the <i>Jan Smuts</i> blew up. And we didn't get the worst
+of it; the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> pickup on the <i>Gaucho</i> was knocked out too soon."</p>
+
+<p>He kept on lecturing her about gamma-rays and ultra-violet rays and
+X-rays and cosmic rays, trying to keep making some sort of intelligent
+sounds while they clung together and waited, and, with the other half
+of his mind, trying not to think of everything that could go wrong
+with that jerry-built improvisation they had just dumped onto Keegark.
+If it didn't blow, and the geeks found it, they'd know that another
+one would be along shortly, and....</p>
+
+<p>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 palpable
+sound, and a sensation of heat that penetrated even the airtight
+superstructure of the <i>Elmoran</i>. 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 remaining
+nuclear armament. There were shattering sounds of breaking glass, and
+heavy thumps that told of structural damage to the cutter, and hoarse
+shouts, and lurid cursing as Morrison and his airmen struggled with
+the controls. The cutter began losing altitude, but she was back on a
+reasonably even keel. Von Schlichten rose, helping Paula to her feet,
+and found that they had been kissing one another passionately. They
+were still in each other's arms when the pitching and rolling of the
+cutter ceased and somebody tapped him on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>He came out of the embrace and looked around. It was Lieutenant (j.g.)
+Morrison.</p>
+
+<p>"What the devil, lieutenant?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry to interrupt, sir, but we're starting back to <i>Procyon</i>. And
+here, you'll want this, I suppose." He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> held out a glass disc. "I
+never expected to see it, but at that it took three A-bombs to blow
+you loose from your monocle."</p>
+
+<p>"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 kissing
+a lady?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked around. They were at about eight hundred to a thousand feet
+above the water, with a stiff following wind away from the explosion
+area. The 90-mm gun, forward, must have been knocked loose and carried
+away; it was gone, and so was the TV-pickup and the radar. Something,
+probably the gun, had slammed against the front of the bridge&mdash;the
+metal skeleton was bent in, and the armor-glass had been knocked out.
+The cutter was vibrating properly, so the contragravity-field had not
+been disturbed, and her jets were firing.</p>
+
+<p>"It was the second and third bombs that did the damage, sir," Morrison
+was saying. "We'd have gone through the effects of our own bomb with
+nothing more than a bad shaking&mdash;of course, on contragravity, we're
+weightless relative to the air-mass, but she was built to stand the
+winds in the high latitudes. But the two geek bombs caught us off
+balance...."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't need to apologize, lieutenant. You and your crew behaved
+splendidly, lieutenant-commander, best traditions, and all that sort
+of thing. It was a pleasure, commander, hope to be aboard with you
+again, captain."</p>
+
+<p>They found Kent Pickering at the rear of the bridge, and joined him
+looking astern. Even von Schlichten, who had seen H-bombs and
+Bethe-cycle bombs, was impressed. Keegark was completely obliterated
+under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> an outward-rolling cloud of smoke and dust that spread out for
+five miles at the bottom of the towering column.</p>
+
+<p>There had been a hundred and fifty thousand people in that city, even
+if their faces were the faces of lizards and they had four arms and
+quartz-speckled skins. What fraction of them were now alive, he could
+not guess. He had to remind himself that they were the people who had
+burned Eric Blount and Hendrik Lemoyne alive; that two of the three
+bombs that had contributed to that column of boiling smoke had been
+made in Keegark, by Keegarkans, and that, with a few causal factors
+altered, he was seeing what would have happened to Konkrook. Perhaps
+every Terran felt a superstitious dread of nuclear energy turned to
+the purposes of war; small wonder, after what they had done on their
+own world.</p>
+
+<p>For one thing, he thought grimly, the next geek who picks up the idea
+of soaking a Terran in thermoconcentrate and setting fire to him will
+drop it again like a hot potato. And the next geek potentate who tries
+to organize an anti-Terran conspiracy, or the next crazy
+caravan-driver who preached <i>znidd suddabit</i>, will be lynched on the
+spot. But this must be the last nuclear bomb used on Uller....</p>
+
+<p>Drunkard's morning-after resolution! he told himself contemptuously.
+The next time, it will come easier, and easier still the time after
+that. After you drop the first bomb, there is no turning back, any
+more than there had been after Hiroshima, four-hundred-and-fifty-odd
+years ago. Why, he had even been considering just where, against the
+mountains back of Bwork, he would drop a demonstration bomb as a
+prelude to a surrender demand.</p>
+
+<p>You either went on to the inevitable catastrophe,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> or you realized, in
+time, that nuclear armament and nationalism cannot exist together on
+the same planet, and it is easier to banish a habit of thought than a
+piece of knowledge. Uller was not ready for membership in the Terran
+Federation; then its people must bow to the Terran Pax. The Kragans
+would help&mdash;as proconsuls, administrators, now, instead of
+mercenaries. And there must be manned orbital stations, and the
+Residencies must be moved outside the cities, away from possible
+blast-areas. And Sid Harrington's idea of encouraging the natives to
+own their own contragravity-ships must be shelved, for a long time to
+come. Maybe, in a century or so....</p>
+
+<p>Kankad had a good idea, at that, a most meritorious idea. He was sold
+on it, already, and he doubted if it would take much salesmanship with
+Paula, either. Already, she was clinging to his arm with obvious
+possessiveness. Maybe their grandchildren, and the Kankad of that
+time, would see Uller a civilized member of the Federation....</p>
+
+<p>They paused, as the gun-cutter nuzzled up to the <i>Procyon</i> and the
+canvas-entubed gangway was run out and made fast, looking back at the
+fearful thing that had sprouted from where Keegark had been.</p>
+
+<p>"You know," Paula was saying, echoing his earlier thought, "but for
+that female pornographer, that would have been Konkrook."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded. "Yes. I hope you won't mind, but there will always be a
+place in my heart for Hildegarde."</p>
+
+<p>Then they turned their backs upon the abomination of Keegark's
+desolation and went up the gangway together, looking very little like
+a general and his adjutant.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p class="blockquot">
+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!</p>
+
+<h3>
+<i>Ace Science Fiction Books by H. Beam Piper</i></h3>
+<ul>
+<li>EMPIRE</li>
+<li>FEDERATION</li>
+<li>FIRST CYCLE</li>
+<li>FOUR-DAY PLANET/LONE STAR PLANET</li>
+<li>FUZZY PAPERS</li>
+<li>FUZZY SAPIENS</li>
+<li>LITTLE FUZZY</li>
+<li>LORD KALVAN OF OTHERWHEN</li>
+<li>PARATIME!</li>
+<li>SPACE VIKING</li>
+<li>ULLER UPRISING</li>
+<li>THE WORLDS OF H. BEAM PIPER</li></ul>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2>ULLER UPRISING</h2>
+
+<h3>"ZNIDD SUDDABIT!"</h3>
+
+
+<p>So the Ulleran challenge begins, with the rantings of a prophet and a
+seemingly incidental street riot. Only when a dose of poison lands in
+the governor-general's whiskey does it become clear that the "geeks"
+have had it up to their double-lidded eyeballs with the imperialist
+Terran Federation's Chartered Uller Company. Then, overnight, war is
+everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>How it will end is in the (merely) two Terran hands of the new
+governor-general, a man shrewd enough to know that "it is easier to
+banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." The problem is,
+the particular piece of knowledge he needs hasn't been used in 450
+years....</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Uller Uprising, by
+Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ULLER UPRISING ***
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@@ -0,0 +1,6751 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Uller Uprising, by
+Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Uller Uprising
+
+Author: Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
+
+Release Date: January 21, 2007 [EBook #19474]
+[Original Release Date: October 5, 2006]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ULLER UPRISING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         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 the
+original hardcover edition. It has been completely reset in a typeface
+designed for easy reading, and was printed from new film.
+
+PRINTING HISTORY
+Twayne edition/ 1952
+Ace edition/ June 1983
+
+Copyright (C) 1952 by Twayne Publishers, Inc.
+Copyright (C) renewed 1983 by Charter Communications, Inc.
+Introduction (C) 1952, 1983 by Dr. John D. Clark
+New Introduction (C) 1983 by John F. Carr
+Cover art by Gino D'Achille
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Introduction to
+
+_ULLER UPRISING_
+
+by John F. Carr
+
+
+With the publication of this novel, _Uller Uprising_, all of H. Beam
+Piper's previously published science fiction is now available in Ace
+editions. _Uller Uprising_ was first published in 1952 in a Twayne
+Science Fiction Triplet--a hardbound collection of three thematically
+connected novels. (The other two were Judith Merril's _Daughters of
+Earth_ and Fletcher Pratt's _The Long View_.) A year later it appeared
+in the February and March issues of _Space Science Fiction_, edited by
+Lester Del Rey.
+
+The magazine version, which was abridged by about a third, was
+believed by many bibliographers to be the only version--and as a
+novella it was too short for book publication. The Twayne version had
+a small print run and is so scarce that few people have seen it. Those
+bibliographers who knew of its existence assumed that both versions of
+_Uller_ were the same. It was through a telephone conversation with
+Charles N. Brown, publisher of _Locus_ and correspondent with Piper,
+that I learned about the Twayne edition and its greater length. Brown
+allowed me to photocopy his original, for which we owe him a debt of
+thanks; because the Twayne version is not only novel length, but far
+better than the shorter one that appeared in _Space Science Fiction_.
+
+Probably the most surprising and interesting thing about the Twayne
+edition is the essay that forms the introduction to that volume, and
+is reprinted here. The essay is by Dr. John D. Clark, an eminent
+scientist of the fourties and fifties and one of the discoverers of
+sulfa, the first "miracle drug." It describes in great detail the
+planetary system of the star Beta Hydri, and gives the names of those
+planets: Uller and Niflheim. A publisher's note states that Clark's
+essay was written first, and given to the contributors as background
+material 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 monumental
+Terro-Human Future History; the first story where we encounter the
+Terran Federation. In it we learn about Odin, the planet that will one
+day be the capital of the First Galactic Empire; and humble Niflheim,
+which in more decadent times will become a common expletive, a word
+meaning hell. This is also where Piper introduced and explained the
+Atomic Era dating system (A.E.). _Uller Uprising_ is set in the early
+years of the Terran Federation's expansion and exploration, an epoch
+of great vitality. In "The Edge of the Knife" Piper compares this time
+of discovery to the Spanish conquest of the Americas. This feeling of
+vigor and unlimited possibilities runs through all the early
+Federation stories: _Uller Uprising_, "Omnilingual," "Naudsonce,"
+"When in the Course--," and, to a lesser degree, in the late
+Federation novels, _Little Fuzzy_, _Fuzzy Sapiens_, and _Fuzzies and
+Other People_. (See _Federation_ by H. Beam Piper for a good overview
+of 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 _Uller
+Uprising_; Federation law and justice in _Little Fuzzy_ and its
+sequels; and, in "Omnilingual" and "Naudsonce," the spirit of science
+and rational inquiry. Yet we also see colonial exploitation and
+subjugation in _Uller Uprising_ and "Oomphel in the Sky," the greed
+and corruption of Chartered land companies in _Little Fuzzy_, and
+political corruption in _Four-Day Planet_. These stories are about a
+living Terro-Human culture, not a utopia.
+
+It was Piper's attention to historical realism and his use of actual
+historical models that have helped his work to pass the test of time
+and have led to his becoming the favorite of a new generation of
+readers more than twenty-five years after his death.
+
+_Uller Uprising_ is the story of a confrontation between a human
+overlord and alien servants, with an ironic twist at the end. Like
+most of Piper's best work, _Uller Uprising_ is modeled after an actual
+event in human history; in this case the Sepoy Mutiny (a Bengal
+uprising in British-held India brought about when rumors were spread
+to native soldiers that cartridges being issued by the British were
+coated with animal fat. The rebellion quickly spread throughout India
+and led to the massacre of the British Colony at Cawnpore.). Piper's
+novel is not a mere retelling of the Indian Mutiny, but rather an
+analysis of an historical event applied to a similar situation in the
+far future.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Like many philosophers and social theorists before him, Piper
+attempted to chart the progress of human-kind; unlike most, however,
+he did not envision or try to create a system of ethics that would end
+all of humanity's problems. The best he could offer was his model of
+the self-reliant man: The man who "actually knows what has to be done
+and how to do it, and he's going to go right ahead and do it, without
+holding a dozen conferences and round-table discussions and giving
+everybody a fair and equal chance to foul things up for him."
+
+Piper brought his own ideas and judgments about society and history
+into all of his work, but they appear most clearly in his Terro-Human
+Future History. While not everyone will agree with Piper's theories
+they give his work a bite that most popular fiction lacks. One cannot
+read Piper complacently. And one can often find a wry insight
+sandwiched in between the blood and thunder.
+
+Other future histories may span more centuries or better illuminate
+the highlights of several decades, but until a rival is created with
+more historical depth and attention to detail, H. Beam Piper's
+Terro-Human Future History will stand as the Bayeux Tapestry of
+science fiction histories.
+
+In many ways--certainly during his lifetime--Piper was the most
+underrated of the John W. Campbell's "Astounding" writers. He was
+probably also the most Campbellian; his _self-reliant man_ is almost a
+mirror image of Campbell's "Citizen."
+
+Piper died a bitter man, a failure in his own mind; shortly before his
+death he believed he could no longer earn a living as a writer without
+charity from his friends or the state.
+
+Now he's the cornerstone of Ace Books. Had he lived long enough to
+finish another half dozen books, he would have been among the sf
+greats of the sixties....
+
+But maybe he does know, after all. Jerry Pournelle, who was very much
+influenced by Piper and in many ways considers himself Beam's
+spiritual descendant--and incidently was John W. Campbell's last major
+_discovery_--has said that sometimes, when he's gotten down a
+particularly 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 was
+developed, the names of Greek Gods had been used up, so those of Norse
+gods were used). It is the second planet of the star Beta Hydri, right
+angle 0:23, declension-77:32, G-0 (solar) type star, of approximately
+the same size as Sol; distance from Earth, 21 light years.
+
+Uller revolves around it in a nearly circular orbit, at a distance of
+100,000,000 miles, making it a little colder than Earth. A year is of
+the 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 a
+certain time of the year the north pole is pointed directly at the
+sun, while at the opposite end of the orbit it points directly away.
+The result is highly exaggerated seasons. At the poles the temperature
+runs from 120 deg.C to a low of-80 deg.C. At the equator it remains not far
+from 10 deg.C all year round. Strong winds blow during the summer and
+winter, from the hot to the cold pole; few winds during the spring and
+fall. The appearance of the poles varies during the year from baked
+deserts to glaciers covered with solid CO_{2}. Free water exists in
+the 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 to
+July 1, it continues swinging around, gradually rising in the sky, the
+spiral converging to its center at the zenith, which it reaches July
+1. From July 1 to October 1 the spiral starts again, spreading out
+from the center until on October 1 it bisects the horizon again. On
+October 1 night arrives to stay until April 1.
+
+At the equator, the sun is visible bisecting the southern horizon for
+all 26 hours of the day on January 1. From January 1 to April 1, the
+sun starts to dip below the horizon at night, to rise higher above it
+during the day. During all this time it rises and sets at the same
+hours, but rises in the southeast and sets in the southwest. At noon
+it is higher each day in the southern sky until April 1, when it rises
+due east, passes through the zenith and sets due west. From April 1 to
+July 1, its noon position drops down to the north, until on July 1, it
+is visible all day, bisected by the northern horizon.
+
+
+3. CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY OF ULLER
+
+Calcium and chlorine are rarer than on earth, sodium is somewhat
+commoner. As a result of the shortage of calcium there is a higher
+ration of silicates to carbonates than exists on earth. The water is
+slightly alkaline and resembles a very dilute solution of sodium
+silicate (water glass). It would have a pH of 8.5 and tastes slightly
+soapy. Also, when it dries out it leaves a sticky, and then a glassy,
+crackly film. Rocks look fairly earthlike, but the absence or scarcity
+of anything like limestone is noticeable. Practically all the
+sedimentary rocks are of the sandstone type.
+
+All rivers are seasonal, running from the polar regions to the central
+seas in the spring only, or until the polar cap is completely dried
+out.
+
+
+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 tendency
+for the microscopic organisms to develop silicate exoskeletons, like
+diatoms. The present invertebrate animal life of the planet is of this
+type and is confined to the equatorial seas. They run from amoeba-like
+objects to things like crayfish, with silicate skeletons. Later, some
+species of them started taking silicone into their soft tissues, and
+eventually their carbon-chain compounds were converted to silicone
+type chains, from
+
+  |  |  |         |   |  |   |  |
+--C--C--C-- to O--Si--O--Si--O--Si,
+  |  |  |         |   |  |   |  |
+
+with organic radicals on the side links. These organisms were a
+transitional 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 be
+seen in the backwaters of the central seas.
+
+A further development occurred when the silicone chain animals began
+to get short-chain silicones into their circulatory systems, held in
+solution by OH or NH_{2} groups on the ends and branches of the
+chains. The proportion of these compounds gradually increased until
+the water was a minor and then a missing constituent. The larger
+mobile species were, then, practically anhydrous. Their blood consists
+of short-chain silicones, with quartz reinforcing for the soft parts
+and their armor, teeth, etc., of pure amorphous quartz (opal). Most of
+these parts are of the milky variety, variously tinted with metallic
+impurities, 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 the
+compromise types into odd corners as relics. They developed into a
+fish-like animal with a very large swim-bladder to compensate for the
+rather higher density of the silicone tissues, and from these fish the
+land animals developed. Due to their high density and resulting high
+weight, 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 the
+silicone tissue. One merges into the other.
+
+The dominant pure silicone animals only could become mobile and
+venture far from the temperate equatorial regions of Uller, since they
+neither froze nor stiffened with cold, nor became incapacitated by
+heat. Note that all animal life is cold-blooded, with a negligible
+difference between body and ambient temperatures. Since the animals
+are silicones, they don't get sluggish like cold snakes.
+
+
+5. PLANT LIFE
+
+The plants are of the carbon-metabolism, silicate-shell type, like the
+primitive animals. They spread out from the equator as far as they
+could go before the baking polar summers killed them. They have normal
+seasonal growth in the temperate zones and remain dormant and frozen
+in the winter. At the poles there is no vegetation, not because of the
+cold winter, but because of the hot summer. The winter winds
+frequently blow over dead trees and roll them as far as the equatorial
+seas. Other dead vegetation, because of the highly silicious water,
+always gets petrified unless it is eaten first. What with the
+quartz-speckled hides of the living vegetation and the solid quartz of
+the dead, a forest is spectacular.
+
+The silicone animals live on the plants. They chew them up, dehydrate
+them, and convert their silicious outer bark and carbonaceous
+interiors into silicones for themselves. When silicone tissue is
+metabolized, the carbon and hydrogen go to CO_{2} and H_{2}O, which
+are breathed out, while the silicone goes into SiO_{2}, which is
+deposited as more teeth and armor. (Compare the terrestrial octopus,
+which makes armor-plating out of calcium urate instead of excreting
+urea or uric acid.) The animals can, of course, eat each other too, or
+make 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 water
+and CO_{2} is too difficult a problem. When they warm up, the water in
+the 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, right
+angle 6:36, declension-43:09; B8 type star, blue-white and hot, 148
+light years distant from Earth, which will require a speed in excess
+of light to reach it.
+
+Niflheim is 462,000,000 miles from its primary, a little less than the
+distance of Jupiter from our sun. It thus does not receive too great a
+total amount of energy, but what it does receive is of high potential,
+a large fraction of it being in the ultra-violet and higher
+frequencies. (Watch out for really super-special sunburn, etc., on
+unwarned personnel.)
+
+The gravity of Niflheim is approximately 1 g, the atmospheric pressure
+approximately 1 atmosphere, and the average ambient temperature
+about-60 deg.C;-76 deg.F.
+
+
+2. ATMOSPHERE
+
+The oxidizer in the atmosphere is free fluorine (F_{2}) in a rather
+low concentration, about 4 or 5 percent. With it appears a mad
+collection of gases. There are a few inert diluents, such as N_{2}
+(nitrogen), argon, helium, neon, etc., but the major fraction consists
+of 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, the
+fluorides of all the non-metals that can form fluorides. The
+phosphorous pentafluoride rains out when the weather gets cold. There
+is also free oxygen, but no chlorine. That would be liquid except in
+very hot weather. It sometimes appears combined with fluorine in
+chlorine trifluoride. The atmosphere has a slight yellowish tinge.
+
+
+3. SOIL AND GEOLOGY
+
+Above the metallic core of the planet, the lithosphere consists
+exclusively of fluorides of the metals. There are no oxides, sulfides,
+silicates or chlorides. There are small deposits of such things as
+bromine trifluoride, but these have no great importance. Since
+fluorides are weak mechanically, the terrain is flattish. Nothing
+tough like granite to build mountains out of. Since the fluoride ion
+is colorless, the color of the soil depends upon the predominant metal
+in 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 deg.C and
+boils at 19.4 deg.C. In it are dissolved varying quantities of metallic
+and non-metallic fluorides, such as boron trifluoride, sodium
+fluoride, etc. When the oceans and lakes freeze, they do so from the
+bottom 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 the
+soil, and carbon tetrafluoride as the equivalent of carbon dioxide
+from 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 could
+only take place on a planet receiving lots of ultra-violet because so
+much energy is needed to break up carbon tetrafluoride and
+hydrofluoric acid. The plant catalyst (doubling for the magnesium in
+chlorophyll) is nickel. The plants are colored in various ways. They
+get their metals from the soil.
+
+
+6. ANIMALS AND ANIMAL METABOLISM
+
+Animals depend upon two main reactions for their energy, and for the
+construction of their harder tissues. The soft tissues are about the
+same as the plant molecules, but the hard tissues are produced by the
+reaction:
+
+  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 be
+tough to do much with. Diatoms leave strata of powdered teflon. The
+main 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 colorless
+arterial blood and violet veinous, as the titanium flips back and
+forth 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, hydrofluoric
+acid, etc., with more or less speed. A rubber gas mask lasts about an
+hour. Glass first frosts and then disappears. Plastics act like
+rubber, only a little slower. The heavy metals, iron, nickel, copper,
+monel, etc., stand up well, forming an insoluble coat of fluorides at
+first and then doing nothing else.
+
+
+8. WHY GO THERE?
+
+Large natural crystals of fluorides, such as calcium difluoride,
+titanium tetrafluoride, zirconium tetrafluoride, are extremely useful
+in optical instruments of various forms. Uranium appears as uranium
+hexafluoride, all ready for the diffusion process. Compounds of such
+non-metals as boron are obtainable from the atmosphere in high purity
+with very little trouble. All metallurgy must be electrical. There are
+considerable deposits of beryllium, and they occur in high
+concentration in its ores.
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+On Satan's Footstool
+
+
+The big armor-tender vibrated, gently and not unpleasantly, as the
+contragravity field alternated on and off, occasionally varying its
+normal rate of five hundred to the second when some thermal updraft
+lifted the vehicle and the automatic radar-altimeter control acted to
+alter the frequency and lower it again. Sometimes it rocked slightly,
+like a boat on the water, and, in the big screen which served in lieu
+of a window at the front of the control cabin, the dingy-yellow
+landscape would seem to tilt a little. If unshielded human eyes could
+have endured the rays of Nu Puppis, Niflheim's primary, the whole scene
+would have appeared a vivid Saint Patrick's Day green, the effect of
+the blue-predominant light on the yellow atmosphere. The outside
+'visor-pickup, however, was fitted with filters which blocked out the
+gamma-rays and X-rays and most of the ultra-violet-rays, and added the
+longer light-waves of red and orange which were absent, so that things
+looked much as they would have under the light of a G0-type star like
+Sol. The air was faintly yellow, the sky was yellow with a greenish
+cast, and the clouds were green-gray.
+
+A thousand feet below, the local equivalent of a forest grew, the
+trees, topped with huge ragged leaves, looking like hundred-foot
+stalks of celery. There would be animal life down there, too--little
+round things, four inches across, like eight-legged crabs, gnawing at
+the vegetation, and bigger things, two feet long, with articulated
+shell-armor and sixteen legs, which fed on the smaller herbivores.
+Beyond, in the middleground, was open grassland, if one could so call
+a mat of wormlike colorless or pastel-tinted sprouts, and a river
+meandered through it. On the skyline, fifty miles away, was a range of
+low dunes and hills, none more than a thousand feet high.
+
+No human had ever set foot on the surface, or breathed the air, of
+Niflheim. To have done so would have been instant death; the air was a
+mixture of free fluorine and fluoride gasses, the soil was metallic
+fluorides, damp with acid rains, and the river was pure hydrofluoric
+acid. Even the ordinary spacesuit would have been no protection; the
+glass and rubber and plastic would have disintegrated in a matter of
+minutes. People came to Niflheim, and worked the mines and uranium
+refineries and chemical plants, but they did so inside power-driven
+and contragravity-lifted armor, and they lived on artificial
+satellites two thousand miles off-planet. This vehicle, for instance,
+was built and protected as no spaceship ever had to be, completely
+insulated and entered only through a triple airlock--an outer lock,
+which would be evacuated outward after it was closed, a middle lock
+kept evacuated at all times, and an inner lock, evacuated into the
+interior 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 lateral
+adjustments in the vehicle's position which were not possible to the
+automatic controls. One of the radiomen was receiving from the orbital
+base; the other was saying, over and over, in an exasperatedly
+patient voice: "Dr. Murillo. Dr. Murillo. Please come in, Dr.
+Murillo." At his own panel of instruments, a small man with grizzled
+black hair around a bald crown, and a grizzled beard, chewed nervously
+at the stump of a dead cigar and listened intently to what was--or for
+what wasn't--coming in to his headset receiver. A couple of assistants
+checked dials and refreshed their memories from notebooks and peered
+anxiously into the big screen. A large, plump-faced, young man in
+soiled khaki shirt and shorts, with extremely hairy legs, was doodling
+on his notepad and eating candy out of a bag. And a black-haired girl
+in a suit of coveralls three sizes too big for her, and, apparently,
+not much of anything else, lounged with one knee hooked over her
+chair-arm, staring into the screen at the distant horizon.
+
+"Dr. Murillo. Dr. Mur--" The radioman broke off in mid-syllable and
+listened for a moment. "I hear you, doctor, go ahead." Then, a moment
+later "What's your position, now, doctor?"
+
+"I can see them," the girl said, lifting a hand in front of her. "At
+two 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 the
+eyepiece of the telescopic-'visor and twisted a dial. "You have good
+eyes, 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's
+missing, and why?" He waited for a moment, then lowered the hand-phone
+and turned. "The fifth one's inside the handling-machine. One of the
+Ullerans. Gorkrink."
+
+The larger of the specks that had appeared on the horizon resolved
+itself into a handling-machine, a thing like an oversized
+contragravity-tank, with a bulldozer-blade, a stubby derrick-boom
+instead of a gun, and jointed, claw-tipped arms to the sides. The
+smaller dots grew into personal armor--egg-shaped things that sprouted
+arms and grab-hooks and pushers in all directions. The man with the
+grizzled beard began talking rapidly into his hand-phone, then hung it
+up. There was a series of bumps, and the armor-tender, weightless on
+contragravity, shook as the handling-machine came aboard.
+
+"You ever see any nuclear bombing, Miss Quinton?" the young man with
+the 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 never
+even 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 been
+dormant for, oh, maybe as long as a thousand years; there ought to be
+a 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 anything
+like basalt in composition--it'll be intensely compressed metallic
+fluorides, with a very high metal-content. The volcanoes we shot three
+months ago yielded a fine flow of lava with all sorts of
+metals--nickel, beryllium, vanadium, chromium, indium, as well as
+copper and iron."
+
+"What sort of gas were you speaking about?" she asked.
+
+"Hydrogen. That's what's going to make the fireworks; it combines
+explosively with fluorine. The hydrogen-fluorine combination is what
+passes for combustion here; the result is hydrofluoric acid, the
+local equivalent of water. See, the metallic core of this planet is
+covered, much less thickly than that of Terra, with fluoride
+rock--fluorspar, and that sort of thing. There's nothing like granite
+here, for instance. That's why those big dunes, out there, are the
+best Niflheim has in the way of mountains. The subsurface hydrogen is
+produced when the acid filters down through the rock, combines with
+pure metals underneath."
+
+"Dr. Murillo's inside, now," the radioman said. "Just came out of the
+inner airlock. He'll be up as soon as he gets out of his
+pressure-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 big
+man, copper-skinned, barrel-chested; he looked like a third-or
+fourth-generation Martian, of Andes Indian ancestry. He came forward
+and stood behind Gomes' chair, looking down at the instruments. His
+assistant stopped at the door. This assistant was not human. He was a
+biped, vaguely humanoid, but he had four arms and a face like a
+lizard's, and, except for some equipment on a belt, he was entirely
+naked.
+
+He spoke rapidly to Murillo, in a squeaking jabber. Murillo turned.
+
+"Yes, if you wish, Gorkrink," he said, in the
+English-Spanish-Afrikaans-Portuguese mixture that was Sixth Century,
+A.E., Lingua Terra. Then he turned back to Gomes as the Ulleran sat
+down in a chair by the door.
+
+"Well, she's all yours, Lourenco, shoot the works."
+
+Gomes stabbed the radio-detonator button in front of him. A voice came
+out of the PA-speaker overhead: "In sixty seconds, the bombs will be
+detonated ... thirty seconds ... fifteen seconds ... ten seconds ...
+five seconds, four seconds, three seconds, two seconds, one
+second...."
+
+Out on the rolling skyline, fifty miles away, a lancelike ray of
+blue-white light shot up into the gathering dusk--a clump of five
+rays, really, from five deep shafts in an irregular pentagon half a
+mile across, blended into one by the distance. An instant later, there
+was a blinding flash, like sheet-lightning, and a huge ball of
+varicolored fire belched upward, leaving a series of smoke-rings to
+float more slowly after it. That fireball flattened, then spread to
+form the mushroom-head of a column of incandescent gas that mounted to
+overtake it, engorging the smoke-rings as it rose, twisting, writhing,
+changing shape, turning to dark smoke in one moment and belching flame
+and crackling with lightning the next. The armor-tender began to pitch
+and 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 real
+fireworks should be starting. What's coming up now is just small
+debris from the nuclear blast. When the shockwaves get down far enough
+to crack things open, the gas'll come up, and then steam and ash, and
+then the magma. This one ought to be twice as good as the one we shot
+three months ago; it ought to be every bit as good as Krakatoa, on
+Terra, 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_?" Lourenco Gomes
+asked. "I wish I were; I have to stay over and make another shot, in a
+month or so, and I've had about all of Niflheim I can take, now. The
+sooner I get onto a planet where they don't ration the air, the better
+I'll like it."
+
+"Well, what do you know!" the large young man with the hairy legs
+mock-marveled. "He doesn't like our nice planet!"
+
+"Nice planet!" Gomes muttered something. "They call Terra God's
+Footstool; well, I'll give you one guess who uses this thing to prop
+his 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 the
+next ship--the _City of Pretoria_--if we get the next blast off in
+time. They want me to design some improvements on a couple of
+power-reactors, so I'll probably see you when I get there."
+
+"Here she comes!" the chief engineer called. "Watch the base of the
+column!"
+
+The pillar of fiery smoke and dust, still boiling up from where the
+bombs had gone off far underground, was being violently agitated at
+the bottom. A series of new flashes broke out, lifting and spreading
+the incandescent radioactive gasses, and then a great gush of flame
+rose. A column of pure hydrogen must have rushed up into the vacuum
+created by the explosion; the next blast of flame, in a lateral sheet,
+came at nearly ten thousand feet above the ground, and great rags of
+fire, changing from red to violet and back through the spectrum to red
+again, went soaring away to dissipate in the upper atmosphere. Then
+geysers of hot ash and molten rock spouted upward; some of the
+white-hot debris landed almost at the acid river, half-way to the
+armor-tender.
+
+"We've started a first-class earthquake, too," the Hispano-Indian
+Martian Murillo said, looking at the instruments. "About six big
+cracks opening in the rock-structure. You know, when this quiets down
+and cools off, we'll have more ore on the surface than we can handle
+in ten years, and more than we could have mined by ordinary means in
+fifty."
+
+About four miles from the original blast, another eruption began with
+a terrific gas-explosion.
+
+"Well, that finishes our work," the large young man said, going to a
+kitbag in the corner of the cabin and getting out a bottle. "Get some
+of those plastic cups, over there, somebody; this one calls for a
+drink."
+
+"That's right," Gomes said. "You do something once, it may be an
+accident; you repeat the performance, and it's a success." He began
+pushing papers aside on his desk, and the girl in the too-ample
+coveralls brought drinking cups.
+
+The Ulleran, in the background, rose quickly and squeaked
+apologetically. Murillo nodded. "Yes, of course, Gorkrink. No need for
+you to stay here." The Ulleran went out, closing the door behind him.
+
+"That taboo against Ullerans and Terrans watching each other eat and
+drink," Murillo said. "What is that, part of their religion?"
+
+"No, it's their version of modesty," the girl replied. "Like some of
+our sex-inhibitions, which they can't even begin to understand.... But
+you were speaking to him in Lingua Terra; I didn't know any of them
+understood it."
+
+"Gorkrink does," Murillo said, uncorking the bottle and pouring into
+the plastic cups. "None of them can speak it, of course, because of
+the structure of their vocal organs, any more than we can speak their
+languages without artificial aids. But I can talk to him in Lingua
+Terra without having to put one of those damn gags in my mouth, and he
+can pass my instructions on to the others. He's been a big help; I'll
+be sorry to lose him."
+
+"Lose him?"
+
+"Yes, his year's up; he's going back to Uller on the _Canberra_. You
+know, it's impossible to keep some trace of fluorine from the air in
+the handling-machines, or even out on the orbiters, and it plays the
+devil with their lungs. He wanted to stay on another three months, to
+help with the next shot, but the medics wouldn't hear of it.... He's
+from Keegark, wherever on Uller that is; claims to be a prince, or
+something. I know all the other geeks kowtow to him. But he's a damn
+good worker. Very smart; picks things up the first time you tell him.
+I'll recommend him unqualifiedly for any kind of work with
+contragravity or mechanized equipment."
+
+They all had drinks, now, except the chief engineer, who wanted a
+rain-check on his.
+
+"Well, here's to us," Murillo said. "The first A-bomb miners in
+history...."
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Commander-in-Chief Front and Center
+
+
+General Carlos von Schlichten threw his cigarette away, flexed his
+hands in his gloves, and set his monocle more firmly in his eye,
+stepping forward as the footsteps on the stairway behind him ceased
+and the other officers emerged from the squat flint keep--Captain
+Cazabielle, the post CO; big, chocolate-brown Brigadier-General
+Themistocles M'zangwe; little Colonel Hideyoshi O'Leary. Far in front
+of him, to the left, the horizon was lost in the cloudbank over Takkad
+Sea; directly in front, and to the right, the brown and gray and black
+flint mountains sawed into the sky until they vanished in the
+distance. Unseen below, the old caravan-trail climbed one side of the
+pass and slid down the other, a sheer five hundred feet below the
+parapet and the two corner catapult-platforms which now mounted 90-mm
+guns. On the little hundred-foot-square parade ground in front of the
+keep, 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 and
+corporal-gunner of his own car. The other fifty-odd were Ulleran
+natives. They stood erect on stumpy legs and broad, six-toed feet.
+They had four arms apiece, one pair from true shoulders and the other
+connected to a pseudo-pelvis midway down the torso. Their skins were
+slate-gray and rubbery, speckled with pinhead-sized bits of quartz
+that had been formed from perspiration, for their body-tissues were
+silicone instead of carbon-hydrogen. Their narrow heads were
+unpleasantly saurian; they had small, double-lidded red eyes, and
+slit-like nostrils, and wide mouths filled with opalescent teeth.
+Except for their belts and equipment, they were completely naked; the
+uniform consisted of the emblem of the Chartered Uller Company
+stencil-painted on chests and backs. Clothing, to them, was
+unnecessary, either for warmth or modesty. As to the former, they were
+cold-blooded and could stand a temperature-range of from a hundred and
+twenty to minus one hundred Centigrade. Von Schlichten had seen them
+sleeping in the open with their bodies covered with frost or freezing
+rain; he had also seen them wade through boiling water. As to the
+second, they had practically no sex-inhibitions; they were all of the
+same gender, true, functional, hermaphrodites. Any individual among
+them could bear young, or fertilize the ova of any other individual.
+Fifteen years ago, when he had come to Uller as a former Terran
+Federation captain newly commissioned colonel in the army of the Uller
+Company, it had taken some time before he had become accustomed to the
+detailing of a non-com and a couple of privates out of each platoon
+for baby-sitting duty. At least, though, they didn't have the
+squaw-trouble around army posts on Uller that they had on Thor, where
+he had last been stationed.
+
+An airjeep, coming in out of the sun, circled the crag-top fort and
+let down onto the terrace next to von Schlichten's command-car. It
+carried a bristle of 15-mm machine-guns, and two of the eight 50-mm
+rocket-tubes on either side were empty and freshly smoke-stained. The
+duraglass canopy slid back, and the two-man crew--lieutenant-driver
+and 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 manner
+of Terran soldiers on extraterrestrial duty, and returned the
+greeting.
+
+"How's the Jeel situation?" he asked, then nodded toward the fired
+rocket-tubes. "I see you had some shooting."
+
+"Yes, sir," the lieutenant said. "Two bands of them. We sighted the
+first coming up the eastern side of the mountain about two miles this
+side of the Blue Springs. We got about half of them with MG-fire, and
+the rest dived into a big rock-crevice. We had to use two rockets on
+them, 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 mile
+this side of Zortolk's Old Fort. There were only six of them; they
+were 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 been
+eating inside the family quite a bit, lately. We let them have two
+rockets. No survivors. Not many very big pieces, in fact. We let down
+at Zortolk's for a beer, after that, and Captain Martinelli told us
+that one of his jeeps caught what he thinks was the same band that was
+down off the mountain night-before-last and ate those peasants on
+Prince Neeldink's estate."
+
+"By God, I'm glad to hear that!" There'd been a perfect hell of a flap
+about that business. Before the Terrans came to Uller, it was a good
+year when not more than five hundred farm-folk would be killed and
+eaten by Jeel cannibals. The incident of two nights ago had been the
+first of its kind in almost six months, but the nobleman whose serfs
+had been eaten was practically accusing the Company of responsibility
+for the crime. "I'll see that Neeldink is informed. The more you do
+for these damned geeks, the more they expect from you.... When you get
+your vehicle re-ammoed, lieutenant, suppose you buzz back to where you
+machine-gunned that first gang. If there are any more around, they'll
+have 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'd
+heard from the cannibal-extermination project for some time.
+
+He turned to Themistocles M'zangwe. "In about two weeks, get a little
+task-force together. Say ten combat-cars, about twenty airjeeps, and a
+battalion of Kragan Rifles in troop-carriers. Oh, yes, and this
+good-for-nothing Konkrook Fencibles outfit of Prince Jaizerd's; they
+can be used for beaters, and to block escape routes." He turned back
+to Lieutenant Kendall and Sergeant Garcia. "Good work, boys. And if
+the synchro-photos show that any of that first bunch got away, don't
+feel too badly about it. These Jeels can hide on the top of a
+pool-table."
+
+He climbed into the command-car, followed by Themistocles M'zangwe and
+Hideyoshi O'Leary. Sergeant Harry Quong and Corporal Hassan Bogdanoff
+took their places on the front seat; the car lifted, turned to nose
+into the wind, and rose in a slow spiral. Below, the fort grew
+smaller, a flat-topped rectangle of masonry overlooking the pass, a
+gun covering each approach, and two more on the square keep to cover
+the rocky hogback on which the fort had been built, with the flagpole
+between them. Once that pole had lifted a banner of ragged black
+marsh-flopper skin bearing the device of the Kragan riever-chieftain
+whose family had built the castle; now it carried a neat rectangle of
+blue bunting emblazoned with the wreathed globe of the Terran
+Federation and, below that, the blue-gray pennant which bore the
+vermilion trademark of the Chartered Uller Company.
+
+"Where now, sir?" Harry Quong asked.
+
+He looked at his watch. Seventeen-hundred; there wasn't time for a
+visit 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 began
+humming and then the hot-jets were cut in. The car turned from the
+fort and the mountains and shot away over the foothills toward the
+coastal plain. Below were forests, yellow-green with new foliage of
+the second growing season of the equatorial year, veined with narrow
+dirt roads and spotted with occasional clearings. Farther east, the
+dirty gray woodsmoke of Uller marked the progress of the
+charcoal-burnings. It took forty years to burn the forests clear back
+to 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 the
+south, he could see the dark green squares, where the hemlocks and
+Norway spruce had been planted by the Company. With a little chemical
+fertilizer, they were doing well, and they made better charcoal than
+the silicate-heavy native wood. That was the only natural fuel on
+Uller; there was no coal, of course, since fallen timber and even
+standing dead trees petrified in a matter of a couple of years. There
+was too much silica on Uller, and not enough of anything else; what
+would be coal-seams on Terra were strata of silicified wood. And, of
+course, there was no petroleum. There was less charcoal being burned
+now than formerly; the Uller Company had been bringing in great
+quantities of synthetic thermoconcentrate-fuel, and had been setting
+up nuclear furnaces and nuclear-electric power-plants, wherever they
+gained a foothold on the planet.
+
+Beyond the forests came the farmlands. Around the older estates, thick
+walls 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 walls
+falling into disrepair. Some of the newer farms, land devoted to
+agriculture with the declining demand for charcoal, had neither moats
+nor walls. That was the Company, too; the huge shell-armored beasts
+had become virtually extinct in the Konk Isthmus now, since the
+introduction of bazookas and recoilless rifles. There seemed to be
+quite a bit of power-equipment working in the fields, and big
+contragravity lorries were drifting back and forth, scattering
+fertilizer, mainly nitrates from Mimir or Yggdrasill. There were still
+a good number of animal-drawn plows and harrows in use, however.
+
+As planets went, Uller was no bargain, he thought sourly. At times, he
+wished he had never followed the lure of rapid promotion and
+fantastically high pay and left the Federation regulars for the army
+of the Uller Company. If he hadn't, he'd probably be a colonel, at
+five thousand sols a year, but maybe it would be better to be a
+middle-aged colonel on a decent planet--Odin, with its two moons,
+Hugin and Munin, and its wide grasslands and its evergreen forests
+that looked and even smelled like the pinewoods of Terra, or Baldur,
+with snow-capped mountains, and clear, cold lakes, and rocky rivers
+dashing under great vine-hung trees, or Freya, where the people were
+human to the last degree and the women were so breathtakingly
+beautiful--than a Company army general at twenty-five thousand on
+this combination icebox, furnace, wind-tunnel and stonepile, where the
+water tasted like soapsuds and left a crackly film when it dried;
+where the temperature ranged, from pole to pole, between two hundred
+and fifty and minus a hundred and fifty Fahrenheit and the
+Beaufort-scale ran up to thirty; where nothing that ran or swam or
+grew was fit for a human to eat, and where the people....
+
+Of course, there were worse planets than Uller. There was Nidhog, cold
+and foggy, its equatorial zone a gloomy marsh and the rest of the planet
+locked in eternal ice. There was Bifrost, which always kept the same
+face turned to its primary; one side blazingly hot and the other close
+to absolute zero, with a narrow and barely habitable twilight zone
+between. There was Mimir, swarming with a race of semi-intelligent
+quasi-rodents, murderous, treacherous, utterly vicious. Or Niflheim. The
+Uller Company had the franchise for Niflheim, too; they'd had to take
+that and agree to exploit the planet's resources in order to get the
+franchise for Uller, which furnished a good quick measure of the
+comparative merits of the two.
+
+Ahead, the city of Konkrook sprawled along the delta of the Konk river
+and 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, and
+not at all this late in the northern summer. The aircar lost altitude,
+and the hot-jet stopped firing. They came gliding in over the suburbs
+and the yellow-green parks, over the low one-story dwellings and
+shops, the lofty temples and palaces, the fantastically twisted
+towers, following a street that became increasingly mean and squalid
+as it neared the industrial district along the waterfront.
+
+Von Schlichten, on the right, glanced idly down, puffing slowly on
+his cigarette. Then he stiffened, the muscles around his right eye
+clamping tighter on the monocle. Leaning forward, he punched Harry
+Quong lightly on the shoulder.
+
+"Circle back, sergeant; let's have a look at that street again," he
+directed. "Something going on, down there; looks like a riot."
+
+"Yes, sir; I saw it," the Chinese-Australian driver replied. "Terrans
+in trouble; bein' mobbed by geeks. Aircar parked right in the bloody
+middle 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 up
+against a house. I saw one of them firing a pistol."
+
+Von Schlichten had the handset of the car's radio, and was punching
+out the combination of the Company guardhouse on Gongonk Island; he
+held down the signal button until he got an answer.
+
+"Von Schlichten, in car over Konkrook. Riot on Fourth Avenue, just off
+Seventy-second Street." No Terran could possibly remember the names of
+Konkrook's streets; even native troops recruited from outside found
+the numbers easier to learn and remember. "Geeks mobbing a couple of
+Terrans. I'm going down, now, to do what I can to help; send troops in
+a hurry. Kragan Rifles. And stand by; my driver'll give it to you as
+it happens."
+
+The voice of somebody at the guardhouse, bawling orders, came out of
+the receiver as he tossed the phone forward over Harry Quong's
+shoulder; Quong caught it and began speaking rapidly and urgently into
+it while he steered with the other hand. Von Schlichten took one of
+the five-pound spiked riot-maces out of the rack in front of him.
+Themistocles M'zangwe had already drawn his pistol; he shifted it to
+his left hand and took a mace in his right. The Nipponese-Irish
+colonel, looking like a homicidally infuriated pixie, had an automatic
+in one hand and a long dagger in the other.
+
+Harry Quong and Hassan Bogdanoff were old Uller hands; they'd done
+this sort of work before. Bogdanoff rose into the ball-turret and
+swung the twin 15-mm's around, cutting loose. Quong brought the car in
+fast, at about shoulder-height on the mob. Between them, they left a
+swath of mangled, killed, wounded, and stunned natives. Then, spinning
+the car around, Quong set it down hard on a clump of rioters as close
+as possible to the struggling group around the two Terrans. Von
+Schlichten threw back the canopy and jumped out of the car, O'Leary
+and M'zangwe behind him.
+
+There was another aircar, a dark maroon civilian job, at the curb; its
+native driver was slumped forward over the controls, a short
+crossbow-bolt sticking out of his neck. Backed against the closed door
+of a house, a Terran with white hair and a small beard was clubbing
+futilely with an empty pistol. He was wounded, and blood was streaming
+over his face. His companion, a young woman in a long fur coat, was
+laying about her with a native bolo-knife.
+
+Von Schlichten's mace had a spiked ball-head, and a four-inch spike in
+front of that. He smashed the ball down on the back of one Ulleran's
+head, and jabbed another in the rump with the spike.
+
+"_Zak! Zak!_" he yelled, in pidgin-Ulleran. "_Jik-jik_, you
+lizard-faced Creator's blunder!"
+
+The Ulleran whirled, swinging a blade somewhere between a big
+butcherknife and a small machete. His mouth was open, and there was
+froth 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 the
+spike-end into the opal-filled mouth. "And _znidd_ you, too," he
+added, recovering and slamming the ball-head down on the narrow
+saurian skull. The Ulleran went down, spurting a yellow fluid about
+the consistency of gun-oil. Then, without wasting words, he maced
+another of the things.
+
+Ahead, one of the natives had caught the wounded Terran with both
+lower hands, and was raising a dagger with his upper right. The girl
+in the fur coat swung wildly, slashing the knife-arm, then chopped
+down on the creature's neck. To one side, a native somewhat better
+dressed than the others, to the extent of a couple of belts with gold
+ornaments, drew a Terran automatic. Von Schlichten hurled his mace and
+drew his pistol, thumbing off the safety as he swung it up, but before
+he could fire, Hassan Bogdanoff had seen and swung his guns around;
+the double burst caught the native in the chest and fairly tore him
+apart.
+
+Another of them closed with the girl, grabbing her right arm with all
+four hands and biting at her; she screamed and kicked her attacker in
+the groin, where an Ulleran is, if anything, even more vulnerable than
+a Terran. The native howled hideously, and von Schlichten, jumping
+over a couple of corpses, shoved the muzzle of his pistol into the
+creature's open mouth and pulled the trigger, blowing its head apart
+like a rotten pumpkin and splashing both himself and the girl with
+yellow blood and rancid-looking gray-green brains.
+
+Hideyoshi O'Leary, jumping forward after von Schlichten, stuck his
+dagger into the neck of a rioter and left it there, then caught the
+girl around the waist with his free arm. Themistocles M'zangwe dropped
+his mace and swung the frail-looking man onto his back. Together, they
+struggled back to the command-car, von Schlichten covering the retreat
+with his pistol. Another rioter--a Zirk nomad from the North, he
+guessed--was aiming one of the long-barreled native air-rifles,
+holding the ten-inch globe of the air-chamber in both lower hands. Von
+Schlichten shot him, and the Zirk literally blew to pieces.
+
+For an instant, he wondered how the small bursting-charge of a 10-mm
+explosive pistol-bullet could accomplish such havoc, and assumed that
+the native had been carrying a bomb in his belt. Then another
+explosion 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 swept
+between the hovels on one side and the warehouses on the other,
+strafing the mob, darted up to a thousand feet, looped, and came
+swooping back, and this time there were three long blue-gray
+troop-carriers behind them.
+
+These landed in the hastily cleared street and began disgorging native
+Company soldiers--Kragan mercenaries, he noted with satisfaction. They
+carried a modified version of the regular Terran Federation infantry
+rifle, 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 of
+the mob. Four-handed soldiers can deliver a simply astonishing volume
+of fire, particularly when armed with auto-rifles having twenty-shot
+drop-out magazines which can be changed with the lower hands without
+lowering the weapon.
+
+There was a clatter of shod hoofs, and a company of the King of
+Konkrook's cavalry came trotting up on their six-legged,
+lizard-headed, quartz-speckled mounts. Some of these charged into side
+alleys, joyfully lancing and cutting down fleeing rioters, while
+others dismounted, three tossing their reins to a fourth, and went to
+work with their crossbows. Von Schlichten, who ordinarily entertained
+a dim opinion of the King of Konkrook's soldiery, admitted,
+grudgingly, that it was smart work; four hands were a big help in
+using 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 Harry
+Quong, a pistol in his right hand, was still talking into the
+radio-phone, and Hassan Bogdanoff was putting fresh belts into his
+guns. Then he saw that the Graeco-African brigadier and the
+Irish-Japanese colonel had gotten the wounded man into the car. The
+girl, having dropped her bolo, was leaning against the side of the
+car, one foot heedlessly in what was left of an Ulleran who had gotten
+smashed under it, weak with nervous reaction.
+
+"We seem to be, Captain Pedolsky. Very smart work; you must have those
+vehicles of yours on hyperspace-drive.... How is he, colonel?"
+
+"We'd better get him to the hospital, right away," O'Leary replied. "I
+think he has a concussion."
+
+"Harry, call the hospital. Tell them what the score is, and tell them
+we're bringing the casualty in to their top landing stage.... Why,
+we'll make out very nicely, captain. You'd better stay around with
+your Kragans and make sure that these geeks of King Jaikark's don't
+let the riot flare up again and get away from them. And don't let them
+get the impression that they can maintain order around here without
+our help; the Company would like to see that attitude discouraged."
+
+"Yes, sir, I understand." Captain Pedolsky opened the pouch on his
+belt and took out the false palate and tongue-clicker without which no
+Terran could do more than mouth a crude and barely comprehensible
+pidgin-Ulleran. Stuffing the gadget into his mouth, he turned and
+began 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 the
+jump-seats. The driver put on the contragravity-field, and the car
+lifted up.
+
+"Them, see if there's a flask and a drinking-cup in the door pocket
+next to you," he said. "I think Miss Quinton could use a drink."
+
+The girl turned. Even in her present disheveled condition, she was
+beautiful--a trifle on the petite side, with black hair and black eyes
+that quirked up oddly at the outer corners. Her nails were
+black-lacquered and spotted with little gold stars, evidently a new
+feminine 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 _City
+of Canberra_ got in from Niflheim. On Uller, there aren't enough of us
+that everybody doesn't know all about everybody else. You're Dr. Paula
+Quinton; you're an extraterrestrial sociographer, and you're a
+field-agent for the Extraterrestrials' Rights Association, like
+Mohammed Ferriera, here." He took the cup and flask from Themistocles
+M'zangwe and poured her a drink. "Take this easy, now; Baldur
+honey-rum, a hundred and fifty proof."
+
+He watched her sip the stuff cautiously, cough over the first
+mouthful, and then get the rest of it down.
+
+"More?" When she shook her head, he stoppered the flask and relieved
+her of the cup. "What were you doing in that district, anyhow?" he
+wanted to know. "I'd have thought Mohammed Ferriera would have had
+more sense than to take you there, or go there, himself, for that
+matter."
+
+"We went to visit a friend of his, a native named Keeluk, who seems to
+be a sort of combination clergyman and labor leader," she replied.
+"I'm going to observe labor conditions at the North Pole mines in a
+short while, and Mr. Keeluk was going to give me letters of
+introduction to friends of his at Skilk."
+
+With the aid of his monocle, von Schlichten managed to keep a straight
+face. Neither M'zangwe nor O'Leary had any such aid; the African
+rolled his eyes and the Japanese-Irishman grimaced.
+
+"We talked with Mr. Keeluk for a while," the girl said, "and when we
+came out, we found that our driver had been killed and a mob had
+gathered. Of course, we were carrying pistols; they're part of this
+survival-kit you make everybody carry, along with the emergency-rations
+and 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 that
+big 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 in
+my life saw anything as beautiful as you coming through that mob
+swinging that war-club!"
+
+"Well, I never saw anything much more beautiful than those 40-mm's
+beginning to land in the mob," von Schlichten replied.
+
+The aircar swung out over Konkrook Channel and headed toward the
+blue-gray Company buildings on Gongonk Island, and the Company
+airport, swarming with lorries and airboats, where the ten
+thousand-ton _Oom Paul Kruger_ had just come in from Keegark, and the
+Company's one real warship, the cruiser _Procyon_, was lifting out for
+Grank, in the North. Down at the southern tip of the island, the
+three-thousand-foot globe of the spaceship _City of Pretoria_, from
+Niflheim, was loading with cargo for Terra.
+
+"Just what happened, while you and Mr. Ferriera were in Keeluk's
+house. Miss Quinton?" Hideyoshi O'Leary asked, trying not to sound
+official. "Was Keeluk with you all the time? Or did he go out for a
+while, say fifteen or twenty minutes before you left?"
+
+"Why, yes, he did." Paula Quinton looked surprised. "How did you guess
+it? You see, a dog started barking, behind the house, and he excused
+himself 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 on
+Uller, except a few owned by Terrans. And wasn't there something
+about ...?"
+
+Von Schlichten had the radio-phone and was calling the command car at
+the scene of the riot. The sergeant-driver answered.
+
+"Von Schlichten here; my compliments to Captain Pedolsky, and tell him
+he's to make immediate and thorough search of the house in front of
+which the incident occurred, and adjoining houses. For his
+information, that's Keeluk's house. Tell him to look for traces of
+Governor-General Harrington's collie, or any of the other terrestrial
+animals that have been disappearing--that goat, for instance, or those
+rabbits. And I want Keeluk brought in, alive and in condition to be
+interrogated. I'll send more troops, or Constabulary, to help you." He
+handed 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 let
+you get away from there alive to report hearing that dog, so he went
+out 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 forces
+concentrated, and he has a pretty good staff."
+
+"But Mr. Keeluk's a friend of ours. He knows what our Association is
+trying to do for his people...."
+
+"So he shows his appreciation by setting that mob on you. Look, he has
+a lot of influence in that section. When you were attacked, why wasn't
+he out trying to quiet the mob?"
+
+"When they jumped you, you tried to get back into the house," M'zangwe
+put 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 sacred
+totem-animal of the Uller Company?"
+
+"It's just a big brown collie, named Stalin, like half the dogs on
+Terra. Somebody stole it, and Keeluk was keeping it, and we want to
+know why. We don't like geek mysteries; not when they lead to
+murderous attacks on Terrans, at least."
+
+The aircar let down on the hospital landing stage. A stretcher was
+waiting, with a Terran interne and two Ulleran orderlies. They got the
+still-unconscious Mohammed Ferriera out of the car.
+
+"You'd better go with them, yourself, Miss Quinton," von Schlichten
+advised. "You have a couple of nasty-looking bruises and bumps. A
+couple of abrasions, too, where those geeks grabbed you; they have
+hides like sandpaper. And better have that coat cleaned, before that
+goo 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 another
+thing. Those letters Keeluk was going to give you, the ones to his
+friends 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 be
+more 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 in
+Sidney Harrington's office; Harrington and Eric Blount, the
+Lieutenant-Governor, faced each other across it, over the three-foot
+disc of an Ulleran chess-board. Harrington had the white, or center,
+position. Blount, sandy-haired and considerably younger, was playing
+black, 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 that
+served all three of them.
+
+"Nothing much," he replied. "Keeluk bugged out as soon as he saw my
+car let down. We picked up a few of his ragtag-and-bobtail, and
+they're being questioned now, but I doubt if they'll tell us anything
+we don't know already. The dog had been kept in a lean-to back of the
+house; it had been removed, probably as soon as Keeluk called in his
+goon-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. "The
+riot's been put down," he continued, "but we're keeping two companies
+of Kragans in the city, and about a dozen airjeeps patrolling the
+section from Eightieth down to Sixty-fourth, and from the waterfront
+back to Eighth Avenue. There is also the equivalent of a regiment of
+King Jaikark's infantry--spearmen, crossbowmen, and a few
+riflemen--and two of those outsize cavalry companies of his, helping
+hold the lid down. They're making mass arrests, indiscriminately. More
+slaves for Jaikark's court favorite, of course."
+
+"Or else Gurgurk wants them to use for patronage," Blount added. "He's
+been building quite a political organization, lately. Getting ready to
+shove Jaikark off the throne, I'd say."
+
+Harrington pushed one of his pieces out along a radial line toward the
+rim. Blount promptly took a pawn, which, under Ulleran rules, entitled
+him to a second move. He shifted another piece, a sort of combination
+knight and bishop, to threaten the piece Harrington had moved.
+
+"Oh, Gurgurk wouldn't dare try anything like that," the
+Governor-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?" Blount
+wanted to know, hastily interposing a piece. "Gurgurk can follow one
+of two lines of policy. He can undertake to heave Jaikark off the
+throne and seize power, or he has to support Jaikark on the throne.
+We're subsidizing Jaikark. Rakkeed has been preaching this crusade
+against the Terrans, and against Jaikark, whom we control. Gurgurk has
+been subsidizing Rakkeed...."
+
+"You haven't any proof of that," Harrington protested.
+
+"My Intelligence Section has," von Schlichten put in. "We can give
+sums of money, and dates, and the names of the intermediaries through
+whom they were paid to Rakkeed. Eric is absolutely correct in making
+that statement."
+
+"Personally, I think Gurgurk's plan is something like this: Rakkeed
+will stir up anti-Terran sentiment here in Konkrook, and direct it
+against our puppet, Jaikark, as well as against us," Blount said.
+"When the outbreak comes, Jaikark will be killed, and then Gurgurk
+will step in, seize the Palace, and use the Royal army to put down the
+revolt that he's incited in the first place. That will put him in the
+position of the friend of the Company, and most of his dupes will be
+rounded up and sold as slaves, and King Gurgurk'll pocket the
+proceeds. The only question is, will Rakkeed let himself be used that
+way? I think Rakkeed's bigger than Gurgurk ever can be. And more of a
+threat to the Company. Everywhere we turn, Rakkeed's at the bottom of
+whatever happens to be wrong. This business, for instance; Keeluk's
+one of Rakkeed's followers."
+
+"Eric, you have Rakkeed on the brain!" Harrington exclaimed
+impatiently, then moved the threatened piece counterclockwise on the
+circle 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 a
+paper-hanger."
+
+"Rakkeed has no following, except among the rabble." Harrington puffed
+furiously at his pipe, trying to figure the best protection for his
+king.
+
+"You just think he hasn't," Blount retorted. "Here in Konkrook, he's
+always entertained by one or another of the big ship-owning nobles.
+They probably deprecate his table-manners, but they just love his
+politics. And the same thing at Keegark, and at the Free Cities along
+the Eastern Shore."
+
+"The last time Rakkeed was in Konkrook, he was the guest of the
+Keegarkan Ambassador," von Schlichten stated. "Intelligence got that
+from a spy we'd planted among the embassy servants."
+
+"You sure this spy wasn't just romancing?" Harrington asked. "You get
+so confounded many wild stories about Rakkeed. Three days after he was
+reported here at Konkrook, he was reported at Skilk, five thousand
+miles 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 be
+left unlocked, by carelessness, and he could blunder overboard at
+about five thousand feet." He watched Harrington make a deceptively
+pointless-looking move. "Sid, this damn dog business worries me."
+
+"Worries me, too. I'm fond of that mutt, and God only knows what sort
+of stuff he's been getting to eat. And I hate to think of why those
+geeks stole him, too."
+
+"Well, at risk of seeming heartless, I'm not so much worried for
+Stalin as I am about why Keeluk was hiding him, and why he was willing
+to murder the only two Terrans in Konkrook who trust him, to prevent
+our finding out that he had him."
+
+"A Mr. Keeluk, a clergyman," von Schlichten quoted. He chain-lit
+another cigarette and stubbed out the old one. "Maybe the Rev. Keeluk
+wanted Stalin for sacramental purposes."
+
+Blount looked up sharply. "Ritual killing?" he asked. "Or sympathetic
+magic?"
+
+Von Schlichten shrugged. "Take your choice. Maybe Rakkeed wanted the
+dog, to kill before a congregation of his followers, killing us by
+proxy, or in effigy. Or maybe they think we worship Stalin, and
+getting control of him would give them power over us. I wish we knew a
+little more about Ulleran psychology."
+
+That wasn't the first time he'd made that wish. Even if sex weren't
+the paramount psychological factor the ancient Freudians believed, it
+was an extremely important one, and on Uller most of the fundamental
+terms of Terran psychology were meaningless. At the same time, the
+average Ulleran probably had complexes and neuroses that would have
+had Freud talking to himself, and they certainly indulged in practices
+that would have even stood Krafft-Ebing's hair on end.
+
+"One thing," Blount said. "It doesn't take any Ulleran psychologist to
+know that about eighty percent of them hate us poisonously."
+
+"Oh, rubbish!" Harrington blew the exclamation out around his
+pipe-stem with a gush of smoke. "A few fanatics hate us, and a few
+merchants who lost money when we replaced this primitive barter
+economy of theirs, but nine-tenths of them have benefited enormously
+from us, and continue to benefit...."
+
+"And hate us more deeply with each new benefit," Blount added. "They
+resent everything we've done for them."
+
+"Yes, this spaceport proposition of King Orgzild of Keegark looks like
+it, now doesn't it?" Harrington retorted. "He hates and resents us so
+much that he's offered us a spaceport at his city...."
+
+"What's it going to cost him?" Blount asked. "He furnishes the
+land--sequestered from the estate of some noble he executed for
+treason--and the labor--all forced. We furnish the structural steel,
+the machine-equipment, the engineering. We get a spaceport we don't
+really need, and he gets all the business it'll bring to Keegark.
+Considering the fact that Rakkeed is a welcome guest at his embassy
+here, and at the Royal Palace at Keegark, I'm beginning to wonder if
+he isn't fomenting trouble for us here at Konkrook to make us willing
+to move our main base to his city."
+
+He made a move. Instantly, Harrington slashed out from the middle of
+the board with one of his heavy-duty, all-purpose pieces and took a
+piece, then moved again.
+
+"Now look whose king's threatened!" he crowed.
+
+"Yes, I see." Blount brought a piece clockwise around the board and
+took the threatening piece, then moved again. "I hope you see whose
+king's threatened, now."
+
+Harrington swore, reached out to move a piece, and then jerked his
+hand back as though the piece were radioactive. For a while, he sat
+puffing his pipe and staring at the board.
+
+"In fact, Orgzild's so sure that we're going to accept his offer that
+he's started building two new power-reactors, to handle the additional
+power-demand that'll result from the increased business," Blount
+continued.
+
+"Where's he getting the plutonium?" von Schlichten asked.
+
+"Where can he get it?" Harrington replied. "He just bought four tons
+of it from us, off the _City of Pretoria_."
+
+"That's a hell of a lot of plutonium," Blount said. "I wonder if he
+mightn'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 me
+started seeing burglars under the bed, next...."
+
+"Maybe there are burglars," Blount said, pointing with his
+cigarette-holder to Harrington's threatened king. "Can't you do
+something about that, Sid?" Then he turned to von Schlichten. "Before
+we get off the subject, how about those letters the Rev. Keeluk gave
+to the Quinton girl?"
+
+"All addressed to Skilkans known to be Rakkeed disciples and rabidly
+anti-Terran," von Schlichten replied. "We radioed the list to Skilk;
+Colonel Cheng-Li, our intelligence man there, teleprinted us back a
+lot of material on them that looks like the Newgate Calendar. We
+turned the letters themselves over to Doc Petrie, the Ulleran
+philology sharp, who is a pretty fair cryptanalyst. He couldn't find
+any indications of cipher, but there was a lot of gossip about
+Keeluk's friends and parishioners which might have arbitrary
+code-meanings. I'm going to explain the situation to Miss Quinton, and
+advise her to have nothing to do with any of the people Keeluk gave
+her letters to."
+
+Harrington had gotten his king temporarily out of danger, losing a
+piece 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 of
+bitches in their book, and anything we say's sure to be a Hitler-sized
+lie."
+
+"Oh, they're not as bad as all that. I never met the girl before
+today, but old Mohammed Ferriera's a decent bloke. And their
+association's really done a lot of good. For one thing, they put an
+end to the peonage system on Yggdrasill, and I know what conditions
+were like, there, before they did."
+
+A calculating look came into Harrington's eye. He puffed slowly at his
+pipe and slid a piece from the center toward the sector of the board
+nearest him. Blount whistled softly and made a quick re-arrangement.
+
+"Carlos, did you say she told you she was going to Skilk, in the near
+future?" Harrington asked. "Well, look here; you're going up that way,
+yourself, with that battalion of Kragans, on the _Aldebaran_. Why
+don't you invite her to make the trip with you? You can be quite
+attractive to young ladies, when you try, and she'll be grateful for
+that rescue this afternoon, which is always a good foundation. Maybe
+you can plant a couple of ideas where they'll do the most good. She's
+only been here for three months--since the _Canberra_ got in from
+Niflheim. You know and I know and we all know that there are a lot of
+things up there at the polar mines that would look like hell to
+anybody who didn't understand local conditions...."
+
+"Well, Miss Quinton's company won't be any particularly heavy cross
+for me to bear," von Schlichten replied. "I won't guarantee anything,
+of course...."
+
+The intercom-speaker on the table whistled several times. Harrington
+swore, laid down his pipe, and got up, brushing ashes from the front
+of his coat. He flipped a switch and spoke into the box.
+
+"Governor," a voice replied out of it, "there's a geek procession just
+landed from a water-barge in front, and is coming up the roadway to
+Company 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 last
+syllable quick enough."
+
+"That'll be Gurgurk, coming to tell us how unhappy his Sodden and
+Inebriated Geekship is about that fracas on Seventy-second Street,"
+Harrington said. "The gift-litter will contain the customary
+indemnity, at the current market quotation. Have Gurgurk and party
+admitted, all but the rifle-platoons; give him an honor guard of our
+Kragans, and keep his own gun-toters outside. Take them to the
+Reception Hall, and hold them there till I signal from the Audience
+Hall, and then herd them in."
+
+He came back and made a move. Immediately, Blount took one of his
+pieces, moved again, took another, and made the third move to which he
+was 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 about
+something if we didn't keep him waiting.... Good Lord! You do have me
+over a barrel, Eric!"
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+Four-and-Twenty Geek Heads
+
+
+Governor-General Sidney Harrington sat on the comfortably upholstered
+bench on the dais of the Audience Hall, flanked by von Schlichten and
+Eric Blount. He didn't look particularly regal, even on that high
+seat--with his ruddy outdoorsman's face and his ragged gray mustache
+and his old tweed coat spotted with pipe-ashes, he might have been any
+of the dozen-odd country-gentleman neighbors of von Schlichten's
+boyhood in the Argentine. But then, to a Terran, any of the kings of
+Uller 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 an
+Ulleran.
+
+He took the false palate and tongue-clicker, officially designated as
+an "enunciator, Ulleran" and, colloquially, as a geek-speaker, out of
+his coat pocket and shoved it into his mouth. Von Schlichten and
+Blount put in theirs, and Harrington pressed the floor-button with his
+toe. After a brief interval, the wide doors at the other end of the
+hall slid open, and the Konkrookan notables, attended by a dozen
+Company native-officers and a guard of Kragan Rifles, entered. The
+honor-guard advanced in two columns; between them marched an unclad
+and heavily armed native carrying an ornate spear with a three-foot
+blade upright in front of him with all four hands. It was the
+Konkrookan Spear of State; it represented the proxy-presence of King
+Jaikark. Behind it stalked Gurgurk, the Konkrookan equivalent of Prime
+Minister or Grand Vizier; he wore a gold helmet and a thing like a
+string-vest made of gold wire, and carried a long sword with a
+two-hand grip, a pair of Terran automatics built for a hand with six
+four-knuckled fingers, and a pair of matched daggers. He was
+considerably past the Ulleran prime of life--seventy or eighty, to
+judge from the worn appearance of his opal teeth, the color of his
+skin, and the predominantly reddish tint of his quartz-speckles. An
+immature Ulleran would be a very light gray, white under the arms, and
+his quartz-specks would run from white to pale yellow. The retinue of
+nobles behind Gurgurk ran through the whole spectrum, from a
+princeling who was almost oyster-gray to old Ghroghrank, the Keegarkan
+Ambassador, who was even blacker and more red-speckled than Gurgurk.
+All of them carried about as much ironmongery as the Prime
+Minister--the pistols were all Terran, and the swords and daggers were
+mostly made either on Terra or at the Terran-operated steel-works on
+Volund.
+
+Four slaves brought up the rear carrying an ornately inlaid box on
+poles. When the spear-bearer reached the exact middle of the hall, he
+halted and grounded his regalia-weapon with a thump. Gurgurk came up
+and halted a couple of paces behind and to the left of the spear, and
+all the other nobles drew up in two curved lines some ten paces to the
+rear, 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 planted
+themselves beside Gurgurk. Von Schlichten regarded the assemblage
+sourly 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 Blount
+accompanying him. Out of the corner of his eye, von Schlichten watched
+a couple of Kragan mercenaries with fifty-shot machine-rifles move
+unobtrusively to positions from whence they could, if necessary, spray
+the visitors with bullets without endangering the Terrans.
+
+"Welcome, Gurgurk," Harrington gibbered through his false palate. "The
+Company is honored by this visit."
+
+"I come in the name of my royal master, His Sublime and Ineffable
+Majesty, Jaikark the Seventeenth, King of Konkrook and of all the
+lands of the Konk Isthmus," Gurgurk squeaked and clicked. "I have the
+honor to bring with me the Lord Ghroghrank, Ambassador of King Orgzild
+of Keegark to the court of my royal master."
+
+"And I," Ghroghrank said, after being suitably welcomed, "am honored
+to be accompanied by Prince Gorkrink, special envoy from my master,
+his Royal and Imperial Majesty King Orgzild, who is in your city to
+receive the shipment of power-metal my royal master has been honored
+to be permitted to purchase from the Company."
+
+More protocol about welcoming Gorkrink. Then Gurgurk cleared his
+throat with a series of barking sounds.
+
+"My royal master, His Sublime and Ineffable Majesty, is prostrated
+with grief," he stated solemnly. "Were his sorrow not so overwhelming,
+he would have come in His Own Sacred Person to express the pain and
+shame which he feels that people of the Company should be set upon
+and 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 effects
+of hashish, heroin and yohimbine; Jaikark and all his court circle
+were addicts. He probably hadn't even heard of the riot.
+
+"The soldiers of His Sublime and Ineffable Majesty came most promptly
+to the aid of the troops of the Company, did they not, General von
+Schlichten?" 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 of
+his royal master, at hearing such high praise from so distinguished a
+soldier. Eric Blount then contributed a short speech, beseeching the
+gods that the deep and beautiful friendship existing between the
+Chartered Uller Company and His Sublime etcetera would continue
+unimpaired, and that His Sublime etcetera would enjoy long life and
+peaceful reign, managing, by a trick of Konkrookan grammar, to imply
+that the second would be conditional upon the first. The Keegarkan
+Ambassador then spoke his piece, expressing on behalf of King Orgzild
+the deepest regret that the people of the Company should be so
+molested, and managing to hint that things like that simply didn't
+happen at Keegark.
+
+The Prince Gorkrink then spoke briefly, in sympathy for the great and
+good friend of all Ulleran peoples, Mohammed Ferriera, who had been
+injured, and hoping that he would soon enjoy full health again. He
+also managed to convey King Orgzild's pleasure at having obtained the
+plutonium. Von Schlichten noticed that a few of his more recent
+quartz-specks were slightly greenish in tinge, a sure sign that he
+had, not long ago, been exposed to the fluorine-tainted air which men
+and geeks alike breathed on Niflheim. When a geek prince hired out as
+a laborer for a year on Niflheim, he did so for only one purpose--to
+learn Terran technologies.
+
+Gurgurk then announced that so enormous a crime against the friends of
+His Sublime etcetera had not been allowed to go unpunished, signaling
+behind him with one of his lower hands for the box to be brought
+forward. The slaves carried it to the front, set it down, and opened
+it, taking from it a rug which they spread on the floor. On this, from
+the box, they placed twenty-four newly severed opal-grinning heads, in
+four neat rows. They had all been freshly scrubbed and polished, but
+they still smelled like crushed cockroaches.
+
+The three Terrans looked at them gravely. A double-dozen heads was
+standard payment for an attack in which no Terran had been killed.
+Ostensibly, they were the heads of the ringleaders: in practice, they
+were usually lopped from the first two-dozen prisoners or over-age
+slaves at hand, without regard for whether the victims had even heard
+of the crime which they were expiating. If the Extraterrestrial's
+Rights Association were really serious about the rights of these
+geeks, they'd advocate booting out all these native princes and
+turning the whole planet over to the Company. That had been the Terran
+Federation's idea, from the beginning; why else give the Company's
+chief representative the title of Governor-General?
+
+There was another long speech from Gurgurk, with the nobles behind him
+murmuring antiphonal agreement--standard procedure, for which there
+was a standard pun, geek chorus--and a speech of response from Sid
+Harrington. Standing stiffly through the whole rigamarole, von
+Schlichten waited for it to end, as finally it did.
+
+They walked back from the door, whence they had escorted the
+delegation, and stood looking down at the saurian heads on the rug.
+Harrington raised his voice and called to a Kragan sergeant whose
+chevrons 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're
+welcome to them."
+
+"Wait a moment," von Schlichten told the sergeant. Then he disgorged
+and pouched his geek-speaker. "See that head, there?" he asked,
+rolling it over with his toe. "I killed that geek, myself, with my
+pistol, while Them and Hid were getting Ferriera into the car. Miss
+Quinton killed that one with the bolo; see where she chopped him on
+the 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 walked
+around the rug, turning heads over with his foot. "This was cut-rate
+head-payment; they just slashed off two-dozen heads at the scene of
+the riot. I don't like this butchery of worn-out slaves and petty
+thieves any better than anybody else, but this I don't like either.
+Six months ago, Gurgurk wouldn't have tried to pull anything like
+this. Now he's laughing up his non-existent sleeve at us."
+
+"That's what I've been preaching, all along," Eric Blount took up
+after him. "These geeks need having the fear of Terra thrown into
+them."
+
+"Oh, nonsense, Eric; you're just as bad as Carlos, here!" Harrington
+tut-tutted. "Next, you'll be saying that we ought to depose Jaikark
+and 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 of
+Jaikark's like fast neutrons through toilet-paper."
+
+"My God!" Harrington exploded. "Don't let me hear that kind of talk
+again! We're not _conquistadores_; we're employees of a business
+concern, here to make money honestly, by exchanging goods and services
+with these people...."
+
+He turned and walked away, out of the Audience Hall, leaving von
+Schlichten and Blount to watch the removal of the geek-heads.
+
+"You know, I went a little too far," von Schlichten confessed. "Or too
+fast, rather. He's got to be conditioned to accept that idea."
+
+"We can't go too slowly, either," Blount replied. "If we wait for him
+to 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 in
+the hide of that Prince Gorkrink?" he asked. "He's just come back from
+Niflheim. 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. You
+know, four of our best native Intelligence operatives have been
+murdered in Keegark in the last three months, and six more have just
+vanished there."
+
+"Well, I'm going there in a few days, myself, to talk to Orgzild about
+this spaceport deal," Blount said. "I'll have a talk with Hendrik
+Lemoyne and MacKinnon. And I'll see what I can find out for myself."
+
+"Well, let's go have a drink," von Schlichten suggested, consulting
+his 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 if
+slightly 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, von
+Schlichten dialed the cocktail they had decided upon and inserted his
+key to charge the drinks to his account, filling a four-portion jug.
+
+As they turned away, they almost collided with Hideyoshi O'Leary and
+Paula Quinton. The girl wore a long-sleeved gown to conceal a bandage
+on 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," he
+greeted her. "Feel better, now?... Miss Quinton, this is
+Lieutenant-Governor Blount. Eric, Miss Paula Quinton."
+
+"Delighted, Miss Quinton," Blount said. "Carlos tells us he found you
+standing over poor Mohammed Ferriera, fighting like a commando. How is
+Mohammed, by the way? No danger, I hope; we all like him."
+
+Mohammed Ferriera was still unconscious, the girl reported; he had a
+minor concussion, but the medics were not greatly disturbed, and
+expected him to be fully recovered in a few weeks. Von Schlichten
+invited her and her escort to join him and Blount. Colonel O'Leary was
+carrying a cocktail jug and a couple of glasses; finding a table out
+of the worst of the noise, they all sat down together.
+
+"I suppose you think it's a joke, our being nearly murdered by the
+people we came to help," Paula began, a trifle defensively.
+
+"Not a very funny joke," von Schlichten told her. "It's been played on
+us 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 the
+way they do. You know, that's a nasty name; in the First Century
+Pre-Atomic, it designated a degraded person who performed some sort of
+revolting public exhibition...."
+
+"Biting off live chickens' heads, in a sideshow wild-man act,"
+Hideyoshi O'Leary supplied. "When you get up north, watch how the
+peasants kill these little things like six-legged iguanas that they
+raise 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. Even
+in the absence of any native, she used her handkerchief to mask the
+act.
+
+"Suddabit," she said, distinctly. "Sud-da-a-bit." Taking out the
+geek-speaker, she put it away. "Why, that's exactly how they'd
+pronounce it!"
+
+"And don't tell me you haven't heard it before," O'Leary said. "The
+geeks were screaming it at you, over on Seventy-second Street, this
+afternoon. _Znidd suddabit_; kill the Terrans. That's Rakkeed the
+Prophet's whole gospel."
+
+"So you see," Eric Blount rammed home the moral, "this is just another
+case of nobody with any right to call anybody else's kettle black....
+Cigarette?"
+
+"Thank you." She leaned toward the lighter-flame O'Leary had snapped
+into being. "I suspect that of being a principle you'd like me to bear
+in mind at the polar mines, when I see, let's say, some laborer being
+beaten by a couple of overseers with three foot lengths of
+three-quarter-inch steel cable."
+
+"Well, you could also remember that a native's skin is about half an
+inch thick, and a good deal tougher than a human's," von Schlichten
+told her. "And it wouldn't hurt any if you found out how these
+laborers are treated at home. Mostly they're serfs hired from the big
+landowners; it's a fact you can easily verify that permission to join
+the labor-companies at the polar mines is regarded as a privilege,
+granted as a reward or denied as a punishment. And most of the geek
+landowners are bitterly critical of the way we treat our labor at the
+mines; they claim we make them dissatisfied with the treatment they
+get at home."
+
+"Of course, they're always glad to have the peasants taken off their
+hands during a slack agricultural season," Blount added, "and we train
+workers to handle contragravity power-equipment. I won't deny that
+there's a lot of unnecessary brutality on the part of the native
+foremen and overseers, which we're trying, gradually, to eliminate.
+You'll have to remember, though, that we're dealing with a naturally
+brutal race."
+
+"Of course, mistreatment of native labor is always blamed on other
+natives, never on the gentle and kindly Terrans," she replied. "That's
+been 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 did
+you run into there?"
+
+"Well, I must admit, the Ullerans who work there are very well
+treated. Except that I don't think it's right to employ any people
+with silicone body-tissues where they're going to breathe
+fluorine-tainted air."
+
+"Nobody ought to be employed on that planet!" Hideyoshi O'Leary
+declared. "I did a two-year hitch there, when I was first commissioned
+in the Company service."
+
+"I put in two years there, too," Blount supported him. "And I might
+add that that's a year longer than any Ulleran native is ever allowed
+to spend on Niflheim. You know what the setup is, there, don't you?
+The Terran Federation Space Navy discovered and explored both Uller
+and Niflheim, which made both planets public domain. The Company was
+originally formed to exploit Uller alone, but the Federation insisted
+that both planets would have to be franchised to the same company.
+They wanted Niflheim exploited, mainly because of the uranium-deposits
+there. As it turned out, the Company's making as much money out of
+Niflheim 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 hundred
+geeks, all employed on construction-work and in the mines, on the
+planet itself, working directly under Terran supervision. We use them
+because they have four hands, and in the power-driven contragravity
+armor that's necessary there, they can manipulate more controls and do
+more 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 do
+supervisory work. So we have to use native foremen, and they're guilty
+of what mistreatment the workers suffer."
+
+"And remember, too," O'Leary added, "work at the polar mines can only
+go on for about two months out of the year--mid-September to
+mid-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 mineral
+deposits in places where you can work all year 'round?"
+
+"Not as rich, or as accessible," Blount said. "You know what the
+seasons are like, at the poles of this planet. The temperature will
+range from about two-fifty Fahrenheit in mid-summer to a hundred and
+fifty below in winter. There's the most intense sort of thermal
+erosion 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 be
+violent circular storms of hot wind, blowing away the light sand and
+dust and leaving the heavier particles of metallic ores and metals
+behind. 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 from
+the surface, load it onto ore-boats, and fly it down to Skilk and
+Krink and Grank, where it's smelted through the winter. The natives
+run the smelters; use the heat to thaw frozen food for themselves and
+their 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 themselves
+ill-treated, you might propose closing them down entirely and see what
+the native reaction would be," von Schlichten told her. "Independently
+hired free workers can make themselves rich, by native standards, in a
+couple of seasons; many of the serfs pick up enough money from us in
+incentive-pay to buy their freedom after one season."
+
+"Well, if the Company's doing so much good on this planet, how is it
+that this native, Rakkeed, the one you call the Mad Prophet, is able
+to find such a following?" Paula demanded. "There must be something
+wrong somewhere."
+
+"That's a fair question," Blount replied, inverting a cocktail jug
+over his glass to extract the last few drops. "When we came to Uller,
+we found a culture roughly like that of Europe during the Seventh
+Century Pre-Atomic, or, more closely, like that of Japan before the
+beginning of the First Century P. A. We initiated a technological and
+economic revolution here, and such revolutions have their casualties,
+too. A number of classes and groups got squeezed pretty badly, like
+the horse-breeders and harness-manufacturers on Terra by the invention
+of the automobile, or the coal and hydroelectric interests when direct
+conversion of nuclear energy to electric current was developed, or
+the railroads and steamship lines at the time of the discovery of the
+contragravity-field. Naturally, there's a lot of ill-feeling on the
+part of merchants and artisans who weren't able or willing to adapt
+themselves to changing conditions; they're all backing Rakkeed and
+yelling '_Znidd suddabit!_' now. You know, it's a shame that geek
+messiah isn't a smart crook, instead of an honest fanatic; he could
+take in the equivalent of a couple of million sols a year off the
+North Uller merchants and the Equatorial Zone shipowners. But it is a
+fact, which not even Rakkeed can successfully deny, that we've raised
+the general living standard of this planet by about two hundred
+percent."
+
+"Rakkeed is a Zirk," von Schlichten said. "They're the nomads who hire
+out to the northern merchants as caravan-drivers, and also prey, or
+used to prey, on the caravans as brigands. Since our air-freighters
+got into operation, neither caravan-driving nor caravan-raiding has
+been a paying business, and our air-patrols have made caravan-raiding
+suicidal as well. So the Zirks don't like us. The only thing they know
+or are willing to learn is handling these six-legged riding-and
+pack-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_, and
+the 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 the
+caravan-trade, we're spoiling their local business, because the
+land-owning barons, who used to deal with them, are now dealing
+directly with us. At Skilk, King Firkked's afraid his feudal nobility
+is going to try to force a Runnymede on him, so he's been currying
+favor with the urban merchants; that makes him as pro-Rakkeed and as
+anti-Terran as they are. At Krink, King Jonkvank has the support of
+his barons, but he's afraid of his urban bourgeoisie, and we pay him a
+handsome 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 as
+bloody-minded an old murderer as you'd care not to meet in a dark
+alley anywhere."
+
+"We can turn our backs on him and not expect a knife between our
+shoulders, anyhow," von Schlichten said. "And we can believe, oh, up
+to eighty percent of what he tells us, and that's sixty percent better
+than any of the other native princes, except King Kankad, of course.
+The Kragans are the only real friends we have on this planet." He
+thought for a moment. "Miss Quinton, are you doing sociographic
+research-work here, in addition to your Ex-Rights work?" he asked.
+"Well, let me advise you to pay some attention to the Kragans. You'll
+only find them treated at any length at all in that compendium of
+misinformation, Willard Stanley-Browne's _Short Sociographic History
+of Beta Hydrae II_, and ninety percent of what Stanley-Browne says
+about them is completely erroneous."
+
+"Oh, but they're just a parasite-race on the Terrans," Dr. Paula
+Quinton objected. "You find races like that all through the explored
+galaxy--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 think
+she's run into many Kragans. We ought to take her over and introduce
+her to King Kankad."
+
+Von Schlichten allowed himself to be smitten by an idea. "By Allah, so
+we 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 cleared
+up here and be ready to leave by 0800 Tuesday? That's four days from
+today."
+
+"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 a
+battalion of Kragan Rifles for duty at the polar mines, where you're
+going. 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 about
+two to three hours. If you think the Kragans are 'pathetic cultural
+mongrels,' what you'll see there will open your eyes. And I might add
+that the nearest Stanley-Browne ever came to seeing Kankad's Town was
+from the air, once, at a distance of four miles."
+
+"Well, they live entirely by serving as mercenary soldiers for the
+Uller Company, don't they?"
+
+"More or less. You see, when we came to Uller, they were barbarian
+brigands; had a string of forts along caravan-roads and at fords and
+mountain-passes, and levied tolls. They raided into Konkrook and
+Keegark territory, too. Well, we had to break that up. We fought a
+little war with them, beat them rather badly in a couple of
+skirmishes, and then made a deal with them. That was before my time,
+when old Jerry Kirke was Governor-General. He negotiated a treaty with
+their King, bought their rievers'-forts outright, and paid them a
+subsidy to compensate for loss of tolls and raid-spoil, and agreed to
+employ the whole tribe as soldiers. We've taught them a lot--you'll
+see how much when you visit their town--but they aren't cultural
+mongrels. You'll like them."
+
+"Well, general, I'll take you up," she said. "But I warn you; if this
+is some scheme to indoctrinate me with the Uller Company's side of the
+case and blind me to unjust exploitation of the natives here, I don't
+propagandize very easily."
+
+"Fair enough, as long as you don't let fear of being propagandized
+blind you to the good we're doing here, or impair your ability to
+observe and draw accurate conclusions. Just stay scientific about it
+and I'll be satisfied. Now, let's take time out for lubrication," he
+said, filling her glass and passing the jug.
+
+Two hours and five cocktails later, they were still at the table, and
+they had taught Paula Quinton some twenty verses of _The Heathen
+Geeks, 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 Terran
+green of the farms, and the spaceport with its ring of mooring-pylons
+empty since the _City of Pretoria_ had lifted out, two days before,
+for Terra, was dropping away behind. Von Schlichten held his lighter
+for Paula Quinton, then lit his own cigarette.
+
+"I was rather horrified, Friday afternoon, at the way you and Colonel
+O'Leary and Mr. Blount were blaspheming against Stanley-Browne," she
+said. "His book is practically the sociographers' Koran for this
+planet. But I've been checking up, since, and I find that everybody
+who's been here any length of time seems to deride it, and it's full
+of the most surprising misstatements. I'm either going to make myself
+famous or get burned at the stake by the Extraterrestrial Sociographic
+Society after I get back to Terra. In the last three months, I've been
+really too busy with Ex-Rights work to do much research, but I'm
+beginning to think there's a great deal in Stanley-Browne's book that
+will have to be reconsidered."
+
+"How'd you get into this, Miss Quinton?" he asked.
+
+"You mean sociography, or Ex-Rights? Well, my father and my
+grandfather were both extraterrestrial sociographers--anthropologists
+whose subjects aren't anthropomorphic--and I majored in sociography
+at the University of Montevideo. And I've always been in sympathy
+with extraterrestrial races; one of my great-grandmothers was a
+Freyan."
+
+"The deuce; I'd never have guessed that, as small and dark as you
+are."
+
+"Well, another of my great-grandmothers was Japanese," she replied.
+"The family name's French. I'm also part Spanish, part Russian, part
+Italian, part English ... the usual modern Argentine mixture."
+
+"I'm an Argentino, too. From La Rioja, over along the Sierra de
+Velasco. My family lived there for the past five centuries. They came
+to 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 what
+was then known as a war-criminal."
+
+"That makes us partners in crime, then," she laughed. "The Quintons
+had to leave France about the same time; they were what was known as
+collaborationists."
+
+"That's probably why the Southern Hemisphere managed to stay out of
+the Third and Fourth World Wars," he considered. "It was full of the
+descendants of people who'd gotten the short end of the Second."
+
+"Do you speak the Kragan language, general?" she asked. "I understand
+it's entirely different from the other Equatorial Ulleran languages."
+
+"Yes. That's what gives the Kragans an entirely different semantic
+orientation. For instance, they have nothing like a subject-predicate
+sentence structure. That's why, Stanley-Browne to the contrary
+notwithstanding, they are entirely non-religious. Their language
+hasn't instilled in them a predisposition to think of everything as
+the result of an action performed by an agent. And they have no
+definite parts of speech; any word can be used as any part of speech,
+depending on context. Tense is applied to words used as nouns, not
+words used as verbs; there are four tenses--spatial-temporal present,
+things here-and-now; spatial present and temporal remote, things which
+were 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 the
+Keene-Gonzales-Dillingham Theory and the older Einstein Theory to King
+Kankad once, and it was beautiful to watch how he picked it up. Half
+the time, he was a jump ahead of me."
+
+The aircar began losing altitude and speed as they came in over
+Kraggork Swamp; the treetops below blended into a level plain of
+yellow-green, pierced by glints of stagnant water underneath and
+broken by an occasional low hillock, sometimes topped by a stockaded
+village.
+
+"Those are the swamp-savages' homes," he told her. "Most of what you
+find in Stanley-Browne about them is fairly accurate. He spent a lot
+of time among them. He never seems to have realized, though, that they
+are living now as they have ever since the first appearance of
+intelligent 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 to
+exterminate," he replied. "You see, at one time, the dominant type of
+mobile land-life was the thing we call a shellosaur, a big thing,
+running from five to fifteen tons, plated all over with silicate
+shell, till it looked like a six-legged pine-cone. Some were
+herbivores and some were carnivores. There are a few left, in remote
+places--quite a few in the Southern Hemisphere, which we haven't
+explored very much. They were a satisfied life-form. Outside of a
+volcano or an earthquake or an avalanche, nothing could hurt a
+shellosaur but a bigger shellosaur.
+
+"Finally, of course, they grew beyond their sustenance-limit, but in
+the meantime, some of them began specializing on mobility instead of
+armor and began excreting waste-matter instead of turning it to shell.
+Some of these new species got rid of their shell entirely. _Parahomo
+sapiens Ulleris_ is descended from one of these.
+
+"The shellosaurs were still a serious menace, though. The ancestors of
+the present Ulleran, the proto-geeks, when they were at about the Java
+Ape-Man stage of development, took two divergent courses to escape the
+shellosaurs. Some of them took to the swamps, where the shellosaurs
+would sink if they tried to follow. Those savages, down there, are
+still living in the same manner; they never progressed. Others
+encountered problems of survival which had to be overcome by
+invention. They progressed to barbarism, like the people of the
+fishing-villages, and some of them progressed to civilization, like
+the Konkrookans and the Keegarkans.
+
+"Then, there were others who took to the high rocks, where the
+shellosaurs couldn't climb. The Jeels are the primitive, original
+example of that. Most of the North Uller civilizations developed from
+mountaineer-savages, and so did the Zirks and the other northern
+plains nomads."
+
+"Well, how about the Kragans?" Paula asked. "Which were they?"
+
+Von Schlichten was scanning the horizon ahead. He pulled over a pair
+of fifty-power binoculars on a swinging arm and put them where she
+could use them.
+
+"Right ahead, there; just a little to the left. See that brown-gray
+spot 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's
+Town. You might say, even the same Kankad. The Kragan kings have
+always provided their own heirs, by self-fertilization. That's a
+complicated process, involving simultaneous male and female
+masturbation, but the offspring is an exact duplicate of the single
+parent. The present Kankad speaks of his heir as 'Little Me,' which is
+a fairly accurate way of putting it."
+
+He knew what she was seeing through the glasses--a massive butte of
+flint, jutting out into the swamp on the end of a sharp ridge, with a
+city on top of it. All the buildings were multi-storied, some piling
+upward from the top and some clinging to the sides. The high
+watchtower at the front now carried a telecast-director, aimed at an
+automatic relay-station on an unmanned orbiter two thousand miles
+off-planet.
+
+"They're either swamp-people who moved up onto that rock, or they're
+mountaineers who came out that far along the ridge and stopped," she
+said. "Which?"
+
+"Nobody's ever tried to find out. Maybe if you stay on Uller long
+enough, you can. That ought to be good for about eight to ten honorary
+doctorates. And maybe a hundred sols a year in book royalties."
+
+"Maybe I'll just do that, general.... What's that, on the little
+island over there?" she asked, shifting the glasses. "A clump of
+flat-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 also
+make TNT and catastrophite, and propellants. Learned that from us, of
+course. They also manufacture most of their own firearms, some of them
+pretty 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 in
+weight-lifting. They can't run, or jump, as well as we can. We often
+come out here for games with the Kragans, where the geeks can't watch
+us. And that reminds me--you're right about that being a term of
+derogation, because I don't believe I've ever knowingly spoken of a
+Kragan as a geek, and in fact they've picked up the word from us and
+apply it to all non-Kragans. But as I was saying, our baseball team
+has to give theirs a handicap, but their football team can beat the
+daylights out of ours. In a tug-of-war, we have to put two men on our
+end for every one of theirs. But they don't even try to play tennis
+with us."
+
+"Don't the other natives make their own firearms?"
+
+"No, and we're not going to teach them how. The thalassic peoples here
+in the Equatorial Zone are fairly good empirical, teaspoon-measure,
+chemists. Well, no, alchemists. They found out how to make
+nitroglycerine, and use it for blasting and for bombs and mines, and
+they screw little capsules of it on the ends of their arrows. Most of
+their chemistry, such as it is, was learned in trying to prevent
+organic materials, like wood, from petrifying. Up in the north, where
+it gets cold, they learned a lot about metallurgy and ceramics, and
+about forced-draft pneumatics, from having to keep fires going all
+winter to thaw frozen food. They make air-rifles, to shoot metal
+darts."
+
+The aircar came in, circling slowly over the town on the big rock, and
+let down on the roof of the castle-like building from which the
+watchtower rose. There were a dozen or so individuals waiting for
+them--the five Terrans, three men and two women, from the telecast
+station, and the rest Kragans. One of these, dark-skinned but with
+speckles no darker than light amber, armed only with a heavy dagger,
+came over and clapped von Schlichten on the shoulder, grinning
+opalescently.
+
+"Greetings, Von!" he squawked in Kragan, then, seeing Paula, switched
+over to the customary language of the Takkad Sea country. "It makes
+happiness 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. "Two
+hours and a half ... Kankad, this is Paula Quinton; Paula, King
+Kankad."
+
+He took out his geek-speaker and crammed it into his mouth. Before any
+other race on Uller, that would have been the most shocking sort of
+bad manners, without the token-concealment of the handkerchief. Kankad
+took it as a matter of course. At some length, von Schlichten
+explained the nature of Paula's sociographic work, her connection with
+the Extraterrestrials' Rights Association, and her intention of going
+to the Arctic mines. Kankad nodded.
+
+"You were right," he said. "I wouldn't have understood all that in
+your language. If I had read it, maybe, but not if I heard it." He put
+his upper right hand on Paula's shoulder and uttered a clicking
+approximation of her name. "I make you one of us," he told her. "You
+must come back, after the work stops at the mines; if you want to
+learn about my people, I'll show you what you want to see, and tell
+you what you want to know. But why not stay here? Why bother about
+those geeks at the mines; the Company treats them much better than
+they deserve. Stay here with us; we will make you happy to be with
+us."
+
+Paula replied slowly: "I thank Kankad, but I must go. Those on Terra
+who sent me here want me to learn for myself how the workers at the
+mines are treated. But I will come back--in a hundred, a hundred and
+fifty 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 wore
+the equipment and insignia of a Company native-major and was freshly
+painted with the Company emblem. "This is Kormork. He and I have borne
+young to each other. Kormork, you watch over Paula Quinton." He
+managed, 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 Schlichten
+introduced the Terrans from the telecast-station. Then Kankad looked
+at the watch he was wearing on his lower left wrist.
+
+"We will have plenty of time, before the ship comes, to show Paula the
+town," he suggested. "Von, you know better than I do what she would
+like to see."
+
+He led the way past a pair of long 90-mm guns to a stone stairway. Von
+Schlichten explained, as they went down, that the guns of King
+Kankad's Town were the only artillery above 75-mm on Uller in
+non-Terran hands. They climbed into an open machine-gun carrier and
+strapped themselves to their seats, and for two hours King Kankad
+showed her the sights of the town. They visited the school, where
+young Kragans were being taught to read Lingua Terra and studied from
+textbooks printed in Johannesburg and Sydney and Buenos Aires. Kankad
+showed her the repair-shops, where two-score descendants of Kragan
+riever-chieftains were working on contragravity equipment, under the
+supervision of a Scottish-Afrikaner and his Malay-Portuguese wife; the
+small-arms factory, where very respectable copies of Terran rifles and
+pistols and auto-weapons were being turned out; the machine-shop; the
+physics and chemistry labs; the hospital; the ammunition-loading
+plant; 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; the
+printing-shop and book-bindery; the observatory, with a big telescope
+and an ingenious orrery of the Beta Hydrae system; the nuclear-power
+plant, part of the original price for giving up brigandage.
+
+Half an hour before the ship from Konkrook was due, they had arrived
+at the airport, where a gang of Kragans were clearing a berth for the
+_Aldebaran_. From somewhere, Kankad produced two cold bottles of Cape
+Town beer for Paula and von Schlichten, and a bowl of some boiling-hot
+black liquid for himself. Von Schlichten and Paula lit cigarettes;
+between sips of his bubbling hell-brew, Kankad gnawed on the stalk of
+some swamp-plant. Paula seemed as much surprised at Kankad's disregard
+for the eating taboo as she had been at von Schlichten's open flouting
+of the convention of concealment when he had put in his geek-speaker.
+
+"This is the only place on Uller where this happens," von Schlichten
+told her. "Here, or in the field when Terran and Kragan soldiers are
+together. There aren't any taboos between us and the Kragans."
+
+"No," Kankad said. "We cannot eat each others' food, and because our
+bodies are different, we cannot be the fathers of each others' young.
+But we have been battle-comrades, and worksharers, and we have learned
+from each other, my people more from yours than yours from mine.
+Before you came, my people were like children, shooting arrows at
+little animals on the beach, and climbing among the rocks at
+dare-me-and-I-do, and playing war with toy weapons. But we are growing
+up, and it will not be long before we will stand beside you, as the
+grown son stands beside his parent, and when that day comes, you will
+not 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, to
+study," von Schlichten said. "I was talking about it with Sid
+Harrington, only a short while ago. He thinks it would be a good
+thing, for your people and for mine."
+
+"Yes. I want Little Me, when he's old enough to travel, to visit your
+world," Kankad said. "And some of the other young ones. And when
+Little Me is old enough to take over the rule of our people, I would
+like to go to Terra, myself."
+
+"Some day, I am going to return to Terra; I would like to have you
+make the trip with me," von Schlichten said.
+
+"That would be wonderful, Von!" Kankad exclaimed. "I want to see your
+world, before I die. It must be a wonderful place. A world is what its
+people make it, and your people must be able to make anything of your
+world that you would want."
+
+"We almost made a lifeless desert, like the poles of Uller, out of our
+world, once," von Schlichten told him. "Four hundred and more years
+ago, we fought great wars among ourselves, with weapons such as I hope
+will never even be thought of on Uller. Our whole Northern Hemisphere,
+where our greatest nations were, was devastated; much of it is
+wasteland to this day. But we put an end to that folly in time; we
+made one nation out of all our people, and swore never to commit such
+crimes again, and then we built the ships that took us out to the
+stars. But I want you to see our world, and some of the other worlds
+that we have visited, I think you would like it."
+
+"I know I would. And with you to tell me what the things I would see
+meant...." 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 that
+bears young?"
+
+"That's right, Kankad. I never bore any, yet, but that's the kind of
+Terran I am."
+
+"I like Paula," Kankad said. "She has come all the way from Terra to
+help us, and to learn about us. Of course, the Kragans don't need that
+kind of help, and the geeks, who would stick a knife in her as soon as
+she turned her back on them, don't deserve it. But she wants to learn
+about us, just as I want to learn about Terra. Von, why don't you and
+Paula have young?" he asked. "I think that would be fine. Then, Little
+Paula-Von and Little Me could be friends, long after the three of us
+are dead and gone."
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+The Bad News Came After the Coffee
+
+
+The last clatter of silverware and dishes ceased as the native
+servants finished clearing the table. There was a remaining clatter of
+cups and saucers; liqueur-glasses tinkled, and an occasional
+cigarette-lighter clicked. At the head table, the voices seemed
+louder.
+
+"... don't like it a millisol's worth," Brigadier-General Barney
+Mordkovitz, the Skilk military CO, was saying to the lady on his
+right. "They're too confounded meek. Nowadays, nobody yells '_Znidd
+suddabit!_' at you. Nobody sticks all four thumbs in his mouth and
+waves his fingers. Nobody commits nuisance on the sidewalk in front of
+you. They just stand and look at you like a farmer looking at a turkey
+the week before Christmas, and that I don't like!"
+
+"Oh, bosh!" Jules Keaveney, the Skilk Resident-Agent, at the head of
+the table, exclaimed. "You soldiers are all alike--begging your
+pardon, General von Schlichten," he nodded in the direction of the
+guest of honor. "If they don't bow and scrape to you and get off the
+sidewalk 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 certain
+amount of disorder, and a certain minimum show of hostility toward us
+from some of these geeks, to conform to what I know to be our
+unpopularity with many of them. When I don't find it, I want to know
+why."
+
+"I'm inclined," von Schlichten came to his subordinate's support, "to
+agree. This sudden absence of overt hostility is disquieting. Colonel
+Cheng-Li," he called on the local Intelligence officer and
+Constabulary chief. "This fellow Rakkeed was here, about a month ago.
+Was there any noticeable disorder at that time? Anti-Terran
+demonstrations, attacks on Company property or personnel, shooting at
+aircars, that sort of thing?"
+
+"No more than usual, general. In fact, it was when Rakkeed came here
+that the condition General Mordkovitz was speaking of began to become
+conspicuous. We did catch some of Rakkeed's disciples trying to get in
+among the enlisted men of the Tenth N.U.N.I. and the Fifth Zirk
+Cavalry and promote disaffection. That was reported at the time, sir."
+
+"And acted upon, as far as the civil administration would permit," von
+Schlichten replied. "And I might say that Lieutenant-Governor Blount
+has reported from Keegark, where he is now, that the same unnatural
+absence of hostility exists there."
+
+"Well, of course, general," Keaveney said patronizingly. "King Orgzild
+has things under pretty tight control at Keegark. He'd not allow a few
+fanatics to do anything to prejudice these spaceport negotiations."
+
+"I wonder if the idea back of that spaceport proposition isn't to get
+us concentrated at Keegark, where Orgzild could wipe us all out in one
+surprise 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 away
+with it for just twelve months--the time it would take to get the
+news to Terra and for a Federation Space Navy task-force to get here.
+And then, there'd be little bits of radioactive geek floating around
+this system as far out as the orbit of Beta Hydrae VII."
+
+"That's quite true," von Schlichten agreed. "The point is, does
+Orgzild 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 Schlichten
+replied. "Or, rather, the string of orbiters and artificial satellites
+around Niflheim. Where he thinks Niflheim is, I wouldn't even try to
+guess."
+
+"Well, it takes six months for a ship to go between here and Nif,"
+Prinsloo considered. "Because of the hyperdrive effects, the
+experienced time of the voyage, inside the ship, is of the order of
+three weeks. Taking that as the figure, he'd estimate the distance at
+about a quarter-million miles, assuming the velocity as being the
+speed of one of our contragravity-ships here on Uller. I'm assuming he
+doesn't even know there is a hyperdrive."
+
+"Yes. After he'd wiped us out, he might even consider the idea of an
+invasion of Niflheim with captured contragravity ships," Hideyoshi
+O'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 was
+still derisive, but under the derision was uncertainty. After all, von
+Schlichten 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 Schlichten
+finished his brandy and got out cigarette-case and lighter. "I have
+an idea of the sort of garbled reports these spies of his who spend a
+year on Niflheim as laborers bring back."
+
+"You know the line Rakkeed's been taking, of course," Colonel Cheng-Li
+put in. "He as much as says that Niflheim's our home, and that the
+farms where we raise food here, and those evergreen plantings on Konk
+Isthmus and between here and Grank are the beginning of an attempt to
+drive all native life from this planet and make it over for
+ourselves."
+
+"And that savage didn't think an idea like that up for himself; he got
+it from somebody like Orgzild," the black-bearded brigadier-general
+added. "You know, the main base off Niflheim is practically
+self-supporting, with hydroponic-gardens and animal-tissue culture
+vats. And it's enough bigger than one of the _City_ ships to pass for
+a 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 his
+cigarette and held his lighter for hers. "You saw that big Beta Hydrae
+orrery at Kankad's observatory. Well, there's quite a little story
+about that. You know, it's generally realized by the natives here that
+Uller is a globe. The North Zirks have ridden all the way around it,
+on hipposaur-back, in the high latitudes, and the thalassic peoples at
+the Equator have sailed all the five equatorial seas and portaged all
+the isthmuses between. But, of course, Uller is the center of the
+universe; the sun travels around it, on a rather complicated
+double-spiral track. As a theory, it explains most of what they're
+able to observe, and any minor effects that don't conform to it are
+just ignored. They have a model, a most ingenious affair run by
+clockwork, at the University of Konkrook, to show the apparent
+movement and position of Beta Hydrae in the sky; it does so fairly
+accurately.
+
+"Well, some of our astronomers constructed this orrery, and exhibited
+it to a gathering of the leading native scholars, who are also the
+high-priests of the local religion. Sort of combined Academy of Arts
+and Sciences and College of Cardinals. They almost were massacred. As
+soon as the assembled pundits saw this thing and grasped its meaning,
+they began geeking and skreeking and yorking and squawking and
+brandishing knives--it was blasphemous, and sacrilegious, and
+undermined 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 the
+University, I hustled around with a company of Kragans, and we cleared
+the hall with the bayonet and ran the reverend professors out onto the
+campus, and after we got things in hand, the Kragans crowded around
+the orrery, trying to set it up to show the existing position of the
+planet relative to the primary and figure out the theory back of it.
+They were very much interested; some of them must have sent word home
+about 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's
+one of his most cherished possessions, but the Konkrook pundits bite
+all four thumbs and wave their fingers every time they think of it."
+He warmed his coffee from a controlled-temperature pot. "You can't use
+Kragan thinking on any subject as a criterion of what somebody like
+Orgzild's opinions will be."
+
+"I never could understand the admiration some of you military people
+have for those cutthroats," Keaveney declared. "Oh, yes, I can. You
+like 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? Still
+think the Kragans are cultural mongrels?"
+
+"Why, they're wonderful! I never expected anything like it. They just
+seem to have picked up everything they could from us, and then gone on
+from there to develop a culture of their own with our techniques. For
+instance, those big guns, the ones they call the Ridge Battery, that
+they built for themselves. They aren't copies of Terran guns. They
+don't look like our work, or give you the feel our work would. And
+that telescope at the observatory," she continued. "Did they build
+that, too?"
+
+"Yes, all we furnished was a couple of textbooks on lens-grinding and
+telescope-design, and a book on optics. You see, when we made that
+deal with them, they realized that we weren't any better fighters than
+they were; we just had better weapons. To have the same kind of
+weapons, they'd have to learn to make them, and once they began
+studying technology, they found that they had to study science.
+Weapon-making was the entering-wedge; after that, they found that they
+could use the same skills to make anything else they wanted. Give them
+another century or so and they'll be one of the great races of the
+galaxy."
+
+"Yes, and it's a good thing they're our friends, too," Mordkovitz
+added. "I'm only sorry there are so few of them, and so many of the
+geeks."
+
+"Yes, the Company ought to let us stockpile nuclear weapons here, just
+to 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 in
+among the convicts to carry firearms. If somebody like Orgzild got
+hold of a nuclear bomb, even a little old First-Century H-bomb, he
+could use it for a model and construct a hundred like it, with all the
+plutonium we've been handing out for power reactors. And there are too
+few of us, and we're concentrated in too few places, to last long if
+that happened. What this planet needs, though, is a visit by a
+fifty-odd-ship task-force of the Space Navy, just to show the geeks
+what 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 too
+much of this mailed-fist-and-rattling-saber stuff from some of the
+junior officers here, without your giving countenance and
+encouragement to it. We're here to earn dividends for the stockholders
+of the Uller Company, and we can only do that by gaining the
+friendship, respect and confidence of the natives...."
+
+"Mr. Keaveney," Paula Quinton spoke up. "I doubt if even you would
+seriously accuse the Extraterrestrials' Rights Association of favoring
+what you call a mailed-fist-and-rattling-saber policy. We've done
+everything in our power to help these people, and if anybody should
+have their friendship, we should. Well, only five days ago, in
+Konkrook, Mr. Mohammed Ferriera and I were attacked by a mob, our
+native aircar driver was murdered, and if it hadn't been for General
+von Schlichten and his soldiers, we'd have lost our own lives. Mr.
+Ferriera is still hospitalized as a result of injuries he received. It
+seems that General von Schlichten and his Kragans aren't trying to
+get friendship and confidence; they're willing to settle for respect,
+in the only way they can get it--by hitting harder and quicker than
+the 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 to
+winking at Paula. Good girl, he thought; she's started playing on the
+Army team!
+
+"Well, of course...." Keaveney began. Then he stopped, as a Terran
+sergeant came up to the table and bent over Barney Mordkovitz'
+shoulder, whispering urgently. The black-bearded brigadier rose
+immediately, taking his belt from the back of his chair and putting it
+on. Motioning the sergeant to accompany him, he spoke briefly to
+Keaveney 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. "Sid
+Harrington'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 radioprint
+slip. "Came in ten minutes ago."
+
+It was an all-station priority telecast. Governor-General Harrington
+had died suddenly, in his room, at 2210; there were no details. He
+glanced at his watch; it was 2243. Konkrook and Skilk were in the same
+time-zone; that was fast work. He handed the slip to Mordkovitz, who
+gave it to Keaveney.
+
+"You from the telecast station, sergeant?" he asked. "All right, let's
+go."
+
+"Wait a minute, general." Keaveney put out a hand to detain him as he
+took his belt and put it on. "How about this?" He gestured nervously
+with the radioprint slip.
+
+"Get up and make an announcement, now," von Schlichten told him,
+fastening the buckle and hitching his pistol and survival-kit into
+place. "It'll be out all over the planet in half an hour. Never hold
+news out unnecessarily." He stubbed out his cigarette. "Come on,
+sergeant."
+
+As he hurried from the banquet-room, he could hear Keaveney tapping on
+his wine-glass.
+
+"Everybody, please! Let me have your attention! There has just come in
+a piece of the most tragic news...."
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+Bismillah! How Dumb Can We Get?
+
+
+The lights had come on inside the semicircular and now open
+storm-porch of Company House, but it was still daylight outside. The
+sky above the mountain to the west was fading from crimson to
+burnt-orange, and a couple of the brighter stars were winking into
+visibility. Von Schlichten and the sergeant hurried a hundred yards
+down the street between low, thick-walled office buildings to the
+telecast station, next to the Administration Building.
+
+A woman captain met him just inside the door of the big soundproofed
+room.
+
+"We have a wavelength open to Konkrook, general," she said. "In booth
+three."
+
+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 the
+image of a third young woman, a lieutenant, at Konkrook station. The
+sergeant rose and started to leave the booth.
+
+"Stick around, sergeant," von Schlichten told her. "I'll want you to
+take over when I'm through." He sat down in front of the combination
+visiscreen and pickup. "Now, lieutenant, just what happened?" he
+asked. "How did he die?"
+
+"We think it was poison, general. General M'zangwe has ordered autopsy
+and chemical analysis. If you can wait about ten minutes, he'll be
+able 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 hunting
+in the morning. I suppose you know his usual routine?"
+
+Von Schlichten nodded. Harrington would have taken a shower, put on
+his 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 Kragan
+guard-sergeant on that floor heard ten pistol-shots, as fast as they
+could 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 Governor
+Harrington on the floor, wearing only his gown, holding an empty
+pistol. He was in convulsions, frothing at the mouth, in horrible
+pain. Evidently he'd fired his pistol, which he kept on his desk, to
+call help; all the bullets had gone into the ceiling. The sergeant
+punched the emergency button, beside the bed, and reported, then tried
+to help the governor, but it was too late. One of the medics got there
+in five minutes, just as he was dying. He'd written his diary up to
+noon of today, and broken off in the middle of a word. There was a
+bottle and an overturned glass on his desk. The Constabulary got there
+a few minutes later, and then Brigadier-General M'zangwe took charge.
+A white rat, given fifteen drops from the whiskey-bottle, died with
+the 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 hour
+earlier, trying to slip off the island without a pass; they were
+holding him at the guardhouse when Governor Harrington died. He's now
+being questioned by the Kragans." The girl's face was bleakly
+remorseless. "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 girl
+said. "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 of
+it.
+
+"I heard what happened, how they found him, and about that geek
+chamber-valet being arrested," von Schlichten said. "Did you get
+anything out of him?"
+
+"He's admitted putting poison in the bottle, but he claims it was his
+own 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 those
+rabbits!"
+
+Five thousand miles away, in Konkrook, Themistocles M'zangwe whistled.
+
+"_Bismillah_! How dumb can we get?" he cried. "Of course they'd need
+terrestrial animals, to find out what would poison a Terran! Wait a
+minute; I'll make a note of that, to spring on this geek, if the
+Kragans haven't finished him by now." Von Schlichten watched M'zangwe
+pick 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 we
+can't reach him."
+
+"Well, who's in charge at Konkrook, now?"
+
+"Not much of anybody. Laviola, the Fiscal Secretary, and Hans
+Meyerstein, the Banking Cartel's lawyer, and Howlett, the Personnel
+Chief, and Buhrmann, the Commercial Secretary, have made up a sort of
+quadrumvirate and are trying to run things. I don't know what would
+happen if anything came up suddenly...." A blue-gray uniformed arm,
+with a major's cuff-braid, came into the screen, handing a slip of
+paper to M'zangwe; he took it, glanced at it, and swore. Von
+Schlichten waited until he had read it through.
+
+"Well, something has, all right," the African said. "We just got a
+call from Jaikark's Palace--a revolt's broken out, presumably headed
+by Gurgurk; Household Guards either mutinied or wiped out by the
+mutineers, 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. The
+native-lieutenant in charge of the Kragans just radioed in; says the
+situation is desperate."
+
+"When a Kragan says that, he means damn near hopeless. Is this being
+recorded?" When M'zangwe nodded, he continued: "All right. Use the
+recording for your authority and take charge. I'm declaring martial
+rule 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'm
+leaving for Konkrook at once; I ought to get in by 0800.
+
+"Now, as to the trouble at the Palace. Don't commit more than one
+company of Kragans and ten airjeeps and four combat-cars, and tell
+them to evacuate Jaikark and his followers and our Kragans to Gongonk
+Island. And alert your whole force. These geek palace revolutions are
+always synchronized with street-rioting, and this thing seems to have
+been synchronized with Sid Harrington's death, too. Get our Kragans
+out if you can't save anybody else from the Palace, but sacrificing
+thirty or forty men to save twenty is no kind of business. And keep
+sending 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 coming
+in."
+
+He rose and left the booth. If we can pull Jaikark's bacon off the
+fire, he was thinking, the Company can dictate its own terms to him
+afterward; 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 step
+toward getting rid of all these geek despots. And with Eric Blount as
+Governor-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 from
+Gurgurk and possibly Rakkeed. Gurgurk's started a putsch against King
+Jaikark; I'm going to Konkrook at once. Call the military airport and
+have my command-car brought to Company House."
+
+Harry Quong and Hassan Bogdanoff had been at the banquet, too; on a
+world of lizard-faced silicate-eaters, the social difference between a
+human general and a human aircar-driver was almost infinitesimal. He'd
+have to talk to Barney Mordkovitz, too; when word of events at
+Konkrook got out among the local geeks, as it probably had already....
+
+The inner door of the soundproofed telecast-room burst open, three men
+hurried inside, and it slammed shut behind them. In the brief
+interval, there had been firing audible from outside. One of the men
+had a pistol in his right hand, and with his left arm he supported a
+companion, whose shoulder was mangled and dripped blood. The third man
+had a burp-gun in his hands. All were in civilian dress-shorts and
+light jackets. The man with the pistol holstered it and helped his
+injured companion into a chair. The burp-gunner advanced into the
+room, looked around, saw von Schlichten, and addressed him.
+
+"General! The geeks turned on us!" he cried. "The Tenth North Uller's
+mutinied; they're running wild all over the place. They've taken their
+barracks and supply-buildings, and the lorry-hangars and the
+maintenance-yard; they're headed this way in a mob. Some of the Zirk
+Cavalry's joined them."
+
+"How about the Kragans?"
+
+"The Eighteenth Rifles? They're with us. I saw a party of them firing
+into the mob; I saw some of the Tenth N.U.N.I. tossing a dead Kragan
+on their bayonets...."
+
+"Have any ammo left for that burp-gun? Come on, then; let's see what
+it'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 audible
+again. The civilian with the burp-gun knew better than to let a
+general go out first; elbowing von Schlichten out of the way, he
+crouched over his weapon and dashed outside. Drawing his pistol, von
+Schlichten followed, pulling the door shut after him.
+
+Darkness had fallen, while he had been inside; now the whole Company
+Reservation was ablaze with electric lights. Somebody at the
+power-plant--either the regular staff, if they were still holding, or
+the mutineers, if they had taken it--had thrown on the emergency
+lights. There was a confused mass of gray-skinned figures in front of
+Company House, reflected light twinkling on steel over them; from the
+direction of the native-troops barracks more natives were coming on
+the run. On the roof of a building across the street, two machine-guns
+were already firing into the mob. A group of Terrans came running out
+of a roadway between two buildings, from the direction of the
+repair-shops; several of them paused to fire behind them with pistols.
+They started toward Company House, saw what was going on there, and
+veered, darting into the door of the building from which the
+auto-weapons were firing. From up the street, a hundred-odd
+saurian-faced native soldiers were coming at the double, bayonets
+fixed 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 these
+rag-tag Auxiliaries. That mob down there's part of them." He was
+puffing under the double effort of running and talking. "Whole thing
+blew up in seconds; no chance to communicate with anybody...."
+
+A Terran woman, in black slacks and an orange sweater, ran across the
+street in front of them, pursued by a group of enlisted "men" of the
+Tenth North Uller Native Infantry, all shrieking "_Znidd suddabit!_"
+The fugitive ran into a doorway across the street; before her pursuers
+were aware of their danger, the Kragans had swept over them. There was
+no shooting; the slim, cruel-bladed bayonets did the work. From behind
+him, 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 of
+the storm-porch. There was shooting, which told him that some of the
+humans who had been at the banquet were still alive. He wondered,
+half-sick, how many, and whether they could hold out till he could
+clear the doorway, and, most of all, he found himself thinking of
+Paula Quinton. Skidding to a stop within fifty yards of the mob, he
+flung out his arms crucifix-wise to halt the Kragans. Behind, he could
+hear the Terrans and native-officers shouting commands to form front.
+
+"Give them one clip, reload, and then give them the bayonet!" he
+ordered. "Shove them off the steps and then clear the porch!"
+
+"One clip, fire, and reload, at will!" somebody passed it on in
+Kragan.
+
+The hundred rifles let go all at once, and for five seconds they
+poured a deafening two thousand rounds into the mutineers. There was
+some 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 hit
+him, 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 stood
+firm. Even under their native-officers and sergeants, they should not
+have broken as they did, but the best of these had paid for their
+loyalty to the Company with their lives, and the rest had destroyed
+their authority by revolting against the source from which it was
+derived. At that, the Skilkan peasantry who made up the Tenth Infantry
+and 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 killed
+them there, they wiped out those who had gotten into the semicircle of
+the storm-porch. The inside doors, von Schlichten saw, were open, but
+beyond them were Terrans and a dozen or so Kragans. Hideyoshi O'Leary
+and Barney Mordkovitz seemed to be in command of these.
+
+"We had about thirty seconds' warning," Mordkovitz reported, "and the
+Kragans in the hall bought us another sixty seconds. Of course, we all
+had our pistols...."
+
+"Hey! These storm-doors are wedged!" somebody discovered. "Those
+goddam geek servants ...!"
+
+"Yeah, kill any of them you catch," somebody else advised. "If we
+could have gotten these doors closed...."
+
+The mob, driven from the steps, was trying to reform and renew the
+attack. From up the street, the machine-guns, silent during the
+bayonet-fight, began hammering again. The mob surged forward to get
+out of their fire, and were met by a rifle-blast and a hedge of
+bayonets at the steps; they surged back, and the machine-guns flailed
+them again. They started to rush the building from whence the
+automatic-fire came, and there was a fusillade and a shriek of "_Znidd
+geek!_" from up the street. They turned and fled in the direction from
+whence they had come, bullets scourging them from three directions at
+once.
+
+For a moment, von Schlichten and the three Terrans and eighty-odd
+Kragans who had survived the fight stood on the steps, weapons poised,
+seeking more enemies. The machine-guns up the street stuttered a few
+short bursts and were silent. From behind, the beleaguered Terrans and
+their 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, went
+into the street, one covering with his rifle while the other three
+checked on their own casualties, used the short, leaf-shaped swords
+they carried to slash off the heads of enemy wounded, and collected
+weapons and ammunition. A couple of hundred more Kragans, led by
+Native-Major Kormork, the co-parent of young with King Kankad, came up
+at the double and stopped in front of Company House.
+
+"We were in quarters, aboard the _Aldebaran_ and in the guesthouse at
+the airport," Kormork reported. "We were attacked, fifteen minutes
+ago, by a mob. We took ten minutes beating them off, and five more
+getting here. I sent Native-Captain Zeerjeek and the rest of the force
+to retake the supply-depot and the shops and lorry hangars, which had
+been taken, and relieve the military airport, which is under attack."
+
+There was still firing from the commercial airport and the smaller
+military airfield. Once there was a string of heavy explosions that
+sounded like 80-mm rockets.
+
+"Good enough. I hope you didn't spread yourself out too thin. What's
+the situation at the commercial airport?"
+
+"The two ships, the _Aldebaran_ and the freighter _Northern Star_, are
+both safe," Kormork replied. "I saw them go on contragravity and rise
+to about a hundred feet."
+
+"Whose crowd is that you have?" he asked the Terran lieutenant who had
+taken 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 couple
+of runners from Captain Retief of Company 4 came in with word that he
+was being attacked by mutineers from the Tenth N.U.N.I. but that he
+was holding them back. So Captain Charbonneau, who was killed a few
+minutes ago, left a Terran lieutenant and a Kragan native-lieutenant
+and a couple of native-sergeants and thirty Kragans to hold the
+guardhouse, and brought the rest of us here."
+
+Von Schlichten nodded. "You'd pass the military airport and the
+power-plant, wouldn't you?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, sir. The military airport's holding out, and I saw the
+red-and-yellow danger-lights on the fence around the power-plant."
+
+That meant the power-plant was, for the time, safe; somebody'd turned
+twenty 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 had
+come out onto the porch from inside. "Where's Colonel Cheng-Li?"
+
+"Here, general." The Intelligence and Constabulary officer pushed
+through the crowd. "I was on the phone, talking to the military
+airport, the commercial airport, ordnance depot, spaceport, ship-docks
+and power-plant. All answer. I'm afraid Pop Goode, at the city
+power-plant, is done for; nobody answers there, but the TV-pickup is
+still on in the load-dispatcher's room, and the place is full of
+geeks. Colonel Jarman's coming here with a lorry to get combat-car
+crews; he's short-handed. Port-Captain Leavitt has all the native
+labor at the airport and spaceport herded into a repair dock; he's
+keeping them covered with the forward 90-mm gun of the _Northern
+Star_. Lorry-hangars, repair-shops and maintenance-yards don't
+answer."
+
+"That's what I was going to ask you. Good enough. Harry Quong, Hassan
+Bogdanoff!"
+
+His command-car crew front-and-centered.
+
+"I want you to take Colonel O'Leary up, as soon as my car's brought
+here.... Hid, you go up and see what's going on. Drop flares where
+there isn't any light. And take a look at the native-labor camp and
+the equipment-park, south of the reservation.... Kormork, you take all
+your gang, and half these soldiers from the Eighteenth, here, and help
+clear the native-troops barracks. And don't bother taking any
+prisoners; we can't spare personnel to guard them."
+
+Kormork grinned. The taking of prisoners had always been one of those
+irrational Terran customs which no Ulleran regarded with favor, or
+even comprehension.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+Authority of Governor-General von Schlichten
+
+
+There was fresh intelligence from Konkrook, by the time he returned to
+the telecast station. Mutiny had broken out there among the laborers
+and native troops, who outnumbered the Terrans and their Kragan
+mercenaries on Gongonk Island by five thousand to five hundred and
+fifteen hundred respectively. The attempt to relieve Jaikark's palace
+had been called off before the relief-force could be sent; there was
+heavy and confused fighting all over the island, and most of the
+combat contragravity and about half the Kragan Rifles had had to be
+committed to defend the Company farms across the Channel, on the
+mainland, south of the city. There had also been an urgent call for
+help from Colonel Rodolfo MacKinnon, in command of Company troops at
+the Keegark Residency, and another from the Residency at Kwurk, one of
+the Free Cities on the eastern shore of Takkad Sea.
+
+He called Keegark; a girl, apparently one of the civilian telecast
+technicians, answered.
+
+"We must have help, General von Schlichten," she told him. "The native
+troops, all but two hundred Kragans, have mutinied. They have
+everything here except Company House--docks, airport, everything.
+We're trying to hold out, but there are thousands of them. Our Takkad
+Native 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, we
+must have help...."
+
+A call came in, a few minutes later, from Krink, five hundred miles to
+the northeast across the mountains; the Resident-Agent there, one
+Francis Xavier Shapiro, reported rioting in the city and an attempted
+palace-revolution against King Jonkvank, and that the Residency was
+under attack. By way of variety, it was the army of King Jonkvank that
+had mutinied; the Sixth North Uller Native Infantry and the two
+companies of Zirk cavalry at Krink were still loyal, along with the
+Kragans.
+
+There was a pattern to all this. Von Schlichten stood staring at the
+big map, on the wall, showing the Takkad Sea area at the Equatorial
+Zone, and the country north of it to the pole, the area of Uller
+occupied by the Company. He was almost beginning to discern the
+underlying logic of the past half-hour's events when Keaveney, the
+Skilk Resident, blundered into him in a half-daze.
+
+"Sorry, general, didn't see you." His face was ashen, and his jowls
+sagged. Von Schlichten wondered if there could be another spectacle so
+woe-begone as a back-slapping extrovert with the bottom knocked out of
+him. "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's
+the end of all of us!"
+
+"It's not quite that bad, Mr. Keaveney." He looked at his watch. It
+was now nearly an hour since the native troops here at Skilk had
+mutinied. Insurrections like this usually succeeded or failed in the
+first hour. It was a little early to be certain, but he was beginning
+to 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 cheerfully
+than he felt, then turned to ask Brigadier-General Mordkovitz how the
+fighting was going at the native-troops barracks.
+
+"Not badly, general. Colonel Jarman's got some contragravity up and
+working. They blew out all four of the Tenth N.U.N.I.'s barracks; the
+Tenth and the Zirks are trying to defend the cavalry barracks. Some of
+our Kragans managed to slip around behind the cavalry stables. They're
+leading out hipposaurs, and sniping at the rear of the cavalry
+barracks."
+
+"That'll give us some cavalry of our own; a lot of these Kragans are
+good riders.... How about the repair-shops and maintenance-yard and
+lorry-hangars? I don't want these geeks getting hold of that equipment
+and using it against us."
+
+"Kormork's outfit are trying to take back the lorry-hangars. Jarman's
+got a couple of airjeeps and a combat-car helping them."
+
+"... won't be one of us left by this time tomorrow," Keaveney was
+wailing, to Paula Quinton and another woman. "And the Company is
+finished!"
+
+"We'd better get him a drink, or a cup of coffee, general," Mordkovitz
+suggested. "With a knockout-drop in it."
+
+Colonel Cheng-Li, the Intelligence officer, seemed to have somewhat
+the same idea. He approached Keaveney and tried to quiet him. At the
+same time, a woman in black slacks and an orange sweater--the one
+whose pursuers had been overrun by the Kragans at the beginning of
+the fighting--approached von Schlichten.
+
+"General, King Kankad's calling," she said. "He's on the screen in
+booth four."
+
+"Right." To avoid any possibility of misunderstanding, he slipped his
+geek-speaker into his mouth before entering the booth. Kankad's face
+was looking out of the screen at him, with Phil Yamazaki, the telecast
+operator at Kankad's Town, standing behind him.
+
+"Von!" The Kragan spoke almost as though in physical pain. "What can I
+do to help? I have twenty thousand of my people here who are capable
+of bearing arms, all with firearms, but I have transport for only five
+hundred. Where shall I send them?"
+
+Von Schlichten thought quickly. Keegark was finished; the Residency
+stood in the middle of the city, surrounded by two hundred thousand of
+King Orgzild's troops and subjects. Since Ullerans were bisexual, the
+total population, less the senile, crippled, and very young, was the
+military potential. Sending Kankad's five hundred warriors and his
+meager contragravity there would be the same as shoveling them into a
+furnace. The people at Keegark would have to be written off, like the
+twenty 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 find
+additional transport for you. I'll call him."
+
+"I'll send off what force I can, at once," Kankad promised. "How does
+it go with you at Skilk?"
+
+"We're holding, so far," he replied. "Paula is with me, here; she
+sends her friendship."
+
+Captain Inez Malavez, the woman officer in charge of the station, put
+her head into the booth.
+
+"General! Immediate-urgency message from Colonel O'Leary," she said.
+"Native laborers from the mine-labor camp are pouring into the
+mine-equipment park. Colonel O'Leary's used all his rockets and
+MG-ammunition trying to stop them."
+
+"Call you back, later," von Schlichten told Kankad. "I'll see what
+Them M'zangwe can do about transport; get what force you can started
+for Konkrook at once."
+
+He left the booth, removing his geek-speaker. "Barney!" he called.
+"General Mordkovitz! Who's the ranking officer in direct contact with
+the Eighteenth Rifles? Major Falkenberg?"
+
+"That's right."
+
+"Well, tell him to get as many of his Kragans as he can spare down to
+the equipment-park." He turned to Inez Malavez. "You call Jarman; tell
+him what O'Leary reported, and tell him to get cracking on it. Tell
+him not to let those geeks get any of that equipment onto
+contragravity; 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 or
+lorries, to get Falkenberg's Rifles to the equipment-park.... How's
+business at the lorry-hangars and maintenance-yard?"
+
+"Kormork's still working on that," the girl captain told him. "Nothing
+definite, yet."
+
+In one corner of the big room, somebody had thumbtacked a
+ten-foot-square map of the Company area to the floor. Paula Quinton
+and Mrs. Jules Keaveney were on their knees beside it, pushing out
+handfuls of little pink and white pills that somebody had brought in
+two bottles from the dispensary across the road, each using a
+billiard-bridge. The girl in the orange sweater had a handful of
+scribbled notes, and was telling them where to push the pills. There
+were 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." Von
+Schlichten suppressed a grin; that was the second time he'd heard her
+use that word, this evening. "The cigarettes are airjeeps, the
+cartridges are combat-cars, and the wafers are lorries or
+troop-carriers."
+
+"Not exactly regulation map-markers, but I've seen stranger things
+used.... Captain Malavez!"
+
+"Yes, sir?" The girl captain, rushing past, her hands full of
+teleprint-sheets, stopped in mid-stride.
+
+"What we need," he told her, "is a big TV-screen, and a pickup mounted
+on some sort of a contragravity vehicle at about two to five thousand
+feet directly overhead, to give us an image of the whole area. Can
+do?"
+
+"Can try, sir. We have an eight-foot circular screen that ought to do
+all 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 got
+Themistocles M'zangwe on the screen.
+
+"How is it, now?" he asked.
+
+"Getting a little better," the Graeco-African replied. "Half an hour
+ago, we were shooting geeks out the windows, here; now we have them
+contained between the spaceport and the native-troops and labor
+barracks, and down the east side of the island to the farms. We have
+the wire around the farms on the island electrified, and we're using
+almost all our combat contragravity to keep the farms on the mainland
+clear." He hesitated for a moment. "Did you hear about Eric and
+Lemoyne?"
+
+Von Schlichten shook his head.
+
+"We just got a call from Rodolfo MacKinnon. He took a couple of
+prisoners and made them talk. The whole party that were at Orgzild's
+palace were massacred. Some of them were lucky enough to get killed
+fighting. The geeks took Eric and Hendrik alive; rolled them in a
+puddle of thermoconcentrate fuel and set fire to them. When we can
+spare the contragravity, we're going to drop something on the Kee-geek
+embassy, over in town."
+
+"Well, that was what I wanted to call you about--contragravity." He
+told M'zangwe about King Kankad's offer. "His crowd ought to be coming
+in in a couple of hours. What can you scrape up to send to Kankad's
+Town to airlift Kragans in?"
+
+"Well, we have three hundred-and-fifty-foot gun-cutters, one 90-mm gun
+apiece. The _Elmoran_, the _Gaucho_, and the _Bushranger_. But they're
+not much as transports, and we need them here pretty badly. Then, we
+have five fertilizer and charcoal scows, and a lot of heavy transport
+lorries, and two one-eighty-foot pickup boats."
+
+"How about the _Piet Joubert_?" von Schlichten asked. "She was due in
+Konkrook from the east about 1300 today, wasn't she?"
+
+M'zangwe swore. "She got in, all right. But the geeks boarded her at
+the dock, within twenty minutes after things started. They tried to
+lift out with her, and the Channel Battery shot her down into Konkrook
+Channel, off the Fifty Sixth Street docks."
+
+"Well, you couldn't let the geeks have her, to use against us. What do
+you hear from the other ships?"
+
+"_Procyon_'s at Grank; we haven't had any reports of any kind from
+there, 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 De
+Wett_ were both at Keegark; we can assume Orgzild has both of them."
+
+"All right. I'm sending _Aldebaran_ to Kankad's, to pick up more
+reenforcements for you."
+
+"We can use them! And with _Aldebaran_, we ought to be able to take
+the 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 of
+communications-machines and hubbub of voices, Jules Keaveney arguing
+contentiously. Evidently Colonel Cheng-Li's efforts to drag the
+Resident out of his despondency had been an excessive success.
+
+"But it's crazy! Not just here; everywhere on Uller!" Keaveney was
+saying. "How did they do it? They have no telecast equipment."
+
+"You have me stopped, Jules," Mordkovitz was replying. "I know a lot
+of rich geeks have receiving sets, but no sending sets."
+
+The pattern that had been tantalizing von Schlichten took visible
+shape in his mind. For a moment, he shelved the matter of the
+_Aldebaran_.
+
+"They didn't need sending equipment, Barney," he said. "They used
+ours."
+
+"What do you mean?" Keaveney challenged.
+
+"Look what happened. Sid Harrington was poisoned in Konkrook. The
+news, 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 the
+signal they'd agreed upon, probably months in advance. All they had to
+do was have that geek servant put poison in Harrington's whiskey, and
+we did the rest."
+
+"Well, what was our intelligence doing--sleeping?" Keaveney demanded
+angrily.
+
+"No, they were writing reports for your civil administration blokes to
+stuff in the wastebasket, and being called mailed-fist-and-rattling-saber
+alarmists for their pains." He turned away from Keaveney. "Barney, where's
+Dirk Prinsloo?"
+
+"Aboard his ship. He hitched a ride to the airport with Jarman, when
+he 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 to
+pick 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 think
+we 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 the
+ubiquitous girl in the orange sweater were struggling to get a big
+circular TV-screen up, then turned to look at the situation-map. A
+girl tech-sergeant was keeping Paula Quinton and Mrs. Jules Keaveney
+informed.
+
+"Start pushing geeks out of the Fifth Zirk Cavalry barracks," the
+sergeant was saying. "The one at the north end, and the one next to
+it; they're both on fire, now." She tossed a slip into the wastebasket
+beside her and glanced at the next slip. "And more pink pills back of
+the barracks and stables, and move them a little to the northwest;
+Kragans as skirmishers, to intercept geeks trying to slip away from
+the 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. "Let
+them 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 northern
+barracks. "There's usually two-way traffic on bridges. Kill them here
+and we won't have to worry about keeping them out."
+
+Of course, it was easy to be bloodthirsty about pink pills and white
+pills. Once, on a three-months' reaction-drive voyage from Yggdrasill
+to Loki, he had taught a couple of professors of extraterrestrial
+zoology to play _kriegspiel_, and before the end of the trip, he was
+being 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 of
+antiseptic plaster over the back of his head came up and gave him a
+radioprint slip. Guido Karamessinis, the Resident-Agent at Grank, had
+reported, at last. The city, he said, was quiet, but King Yoorkerk's
+troops had seized the Company airport and docks, taken the _Procyon_
+and the _Northern Lights_ and put guards aboard them, and were
+surrounding 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," he
+told the Grank Resident. "If the rebellion's put down, he'll come
+forward as your friend and protector; if we're wiped out elsewhere,
+he'll yell '_Znidd suddabit!_' and swamp you. Don't antagonize him; we
+can'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 of
+freckles 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 keeping
+open a couple of streets between there and here. We air-lifted all our
+Kragans and half the Sixth N.U.N.I. to the Palace, and we have the
+Zirks patrolling the streets on 'saurback. Now, we have our lorries
+and troop-carriers out picking up elements of Jonkvank's loyal troops
+outside town."
+
+"Who's doing the rioting, then?"
+
+She named three of Jonkvank's regiments. "And the city hoodlums, and
+priests from the temples of one sect that followed Rakkeed, and
+Skilkan fifth columnists. Mr. Shapiro can give you the details. Shall
+I call him?"
+
+"Never mind. He's probably busy, he's not as easy on the eyes as you
+are, 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 troops
+into 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-colored
+light, then cleared. Within a few minutes, a saurian Ulleran face was
+looking out of it at him--a harsh-lined, elderly face, with an old
+scar, quartz-crusted, along one side.
+
+"Your Majesty," von Schlichten greeted him.
+
+Jonkvank pronounced something intended to correspond to von
+Schlichten'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 am
+told that your soldiers in Krink have risen against you, and that your
+loyal troops are far from the city."
+
+"Yes. That was the work of my War Minister, Hurkkurk, who was in the
+pay of King Firkked of Skilk, may Jeels devour him alive! I have
+Hurkkurk's head here somewhere, if you want to see it, but that will
+not bring my loyal soldiers to Krink any sooner."
+
+"Dead traitors' heads do not interest me, King Jonkvank," von
+Schlichten replied, in what he estimated that the Krinkan king would
+interpret as a tone of cold-blooded cruelty. "There are too many
+traitors' heads still on traitors' shoulders.... What regiments are
+loyal to you, and where are they now?"
+
+Jonkvank began naming regiments and locating them, all at minor
+provincial towns at least a hundred miles from Krink.
+
+"Hurkkurk did his work well; I'm afraid you killed him too
+mercifully," von Schlichten said. "Well, I'm sending the _Northern
+Star_ to Krink. She can only bring in one regiment at a trip, the way
+they're scattered; which one do you want first?"
+
+Jonkvank's mouth, until now compressed grimly, parted in a gleaming
+smile. He made an exclamation of pleasure which sounded rather like a
+boy running along a picket fence with a stick.
+
+"Good, general! Good!" he cried. "The first should be the regiment
+Murderers, at Furnk; they all have rifles like your soldiers. Have
+them brought to the Great Square, at the Palace here. And then, the
+regiment 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 the
+work 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 this
+wickedness, both here and there!"
+
+"Good. Now, if you will pardon me, I'll go to give the necessary
+orders...."
+
+As he left the booth, he saw Hideyoshi O'Leary in front of the
+situation-map, and hailed him.
+
+"Harry and Hassan are getting the car re-ammoed; they dropped me off
+here. 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 here
+again." He told O'Leary what he intended doing. "You'll probably have
+to go around ahead of the _Star_ and alert these regiments. And as
+soon as things stabilize at Krink, prod Jonkvank into airlifting
+troops here. You're authorized, in my name, to promise Jonkvank that
+he can assume political control at Skilk, after we've stuffed
+Firkked's head in the dustbin."
+
+Jules Keaveney, who always seemed to be where he wasn't wanted, heard
+that and fairly screamed.
+
+"General von Schlichten! That is a political decision! You have no
+authority to make promises like that; that is a matter for the
+Governor-General, at least!"
+
+"Well, as of now, and until a successor to Sid Harrington can be sent
+here from Terra, I'm Governor-General," von Schlichten told him,
+mentally thanking Keaveney for reminding him of the necessity for such
+a step. "Captain Malavez! You will send out an all-station telecast,
+immediately: Military Commander-in-Chief Carlos von Schlichten, being
+informed of the deaths of both Governor-General Harrington and
+Lieutenant-Governor Blount, assumes the duties of Governor-General, as
+of 0001 today." He turned to Keaveney. "Does that satisfy you?" he
+asked.
+
+"No, it doesn't. You have no authority to assume a civil position of
+any 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't
+fancy the Uller Company is going to be impressed by it."
+
+"The Uller Company," von Schlichten replied, "is six and a half
+parsecs 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 little
+over twenty-one years, each way." He holstered the pistol again. "You
+were bitching about how we needed reenforcements, a while ago. Well,
+here's where we have to reverse Clausewitz and use politics as an
+extension by other means of war."
+
+"That brings up another question, general," one of Keaveney's
+subordinates said. "Can we hold out long enough for help to get here
+from 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 live
+Terran left on Uller." He felt a brief sadistic pleasure as he watched
+Keaveney's face sag in horror. "What do you think we'll live on, for a
+year?" he asked. "On this planet, there's not more than a three
+months' supply of any sort of food a human can eat. And the ships
+that'll be coming in until word of our plight can get to Terra won't
+bring enough to keep us going. We need the farms and livestock and the
+animal-tissue culture plant at Konkrook, and the farms at Krink and on
+the plateau back of Skilk, and we need peace and native labor to work
+them."
+
+Nobody seemed to have anything to say after that, for a while. Then
+Keaveney suggested that the next ship was due in from Niflheim in
+three months, and that it could be used to evacuate all the Terrans on
+Uller.
+
+"And I'll personally shoot any able-bodied Terran who tries to board
+that ship," von Schlichten promised. "Get this through your heads, all
+of you. We are going to break this rebellion, and we are going to hold
+Uller for the Company and the Terran Federation." He looked around
+him. "Now, get back to work, all of you," he told the group that had
+formed around him and Keaveney. "Miss Quinton, you just heard me order
+my adjutant, Colonel O'Leary, on detached duty to Krink. I want you to
+take over for him. You'll have rank and authority as colonel for the
+duration of this war."
+
+She was thunderstruck. "But I know absolutely nothing about military
+matters. There must be a hundred people here who are better qualified
+than I am...."
+
+"There are, and they all have jobs, and I'd have to find replacements
+for them, and replacements for the replacements. You won't leave any
+vacancy to be filled. And you'll learn, fast enough." He went over to
+the situation-map again, and looked at the arrangement of pink and
+white pills. "First of all, I want you to call Jarman, at the military
+airport, and have an airjeep and driver sent around here for me. I'm
+going up and have a look around. Barney, keep the show going while I'm
+out, 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 air
+and tobacco-smoke of the telecast station out of his lungs, as the
+light airjeep let down into the street. Oh-one-fifteen--two hours and
+a half since the mutiny at the native-troops barracks had broken out.
+The Company reservation was still ablaze with lights, and over the
+roof of the hospital and dispensary and test-lab he could see the
+glare 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 predominantly
+Malayan and Polynesian blood, slid back the duraglass canopy for him
+to climb in, then snapped it into place when he had strapped himself
+into his seat.
+
+"Can you handle the armament, sir?" he asked.
+
+Von Schlichten nodded approvingly. Not a very flattering question, but
+the boy was right to make sure, before they started out.
+
+"I've done it, once or twice," he understated. "Let's go; I want a
+look 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 the
+direction of the flames and explosions and magnesium-lights to the
+south and tapping his booster-button gently. The vehicle shot forward
+and came floating in over the scene of the fighting. The situation-map
+at the improvised headquarters had shown a mixture of pink and white
+pills in the mine-equipment park; something was going to have to be
+done about the lag in correcting it, for the area was entirely in the
+hands of loyal Company troops, and the mob of laborers and mutinous
+soldiers had been pushed back into the temporary camp where the
+workers had been gathered to await transportation to the Arctic. As he
+feared, the rioting workers, many of whom were trained to handle
+contragravity equipment, had managed to lift up a number of
+dump-trucks and powershovels and bulldozers, intending to use them as
+improvised airtanks, but Jarman's combat-cars had gotten on the job
+promptly and all of these had been shot down and were lying in
+wreckage, mostly among the rows of parked mining-equipment.
+
+From the labor-camp, a surprising volume of fire was being directed
+against the attack which had already started from the retaken
+equipment-park. This was just another evidence of the failure of
+Intelligence and the Constabulary--and consequently of himself--to
+anticipate the brewing storm. There was, of course, practically no
+chance of keeping Ullerans from having native weapons, swords, knives,
+even bows and air-rifles, and a certain number of Volund-made
+trade-quality automatic pistols could be expected, but most of the
+fire was coming from military rifles, and now and then he could see
+the furnace-like backflash of a recoilless rifle or a bazooka, or the
+steady flicker of a machine-gun. Even if a few of these weapons had
+been brought from the barracks by retreating Tenth Infantry or Fifth
+Cavalry mutineers, there were still too many.
+
+Hovering above the fighting, aloof from it, he saw six long
+troop-carriers land and disgorge Kragan Rifles who had been released
+by the liquidation of resistance at the native-troops barracks. A
+little later, two airtanks floated in, and then two more, going off
+contragravity and lumbering on treads to fire their 90-mm rifles. At
+the same time, combat-cars swooped in, banging away with their lighter
+auto-cannon and launching rockets. The titanium prefab-huts, set up to
+house the laborers and intended to be taken north with them for their
+stay on the polar desert, were simply wiped away. Among the wreckage,
+resistance was being blown out like the lights of a candelabrum. Push
+the white pills out, girls, he thought. Don't push them anywhere; put
+them back in the bottle. This year, there wouldn't be any mining done
+at the North Pole; next year, the stockholders'll be bitching about
+their dividend-checks. And a lot of new machine operators are going to
+have 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 at
+the equipment-park?"
+
+A voice at the telecast station furnished it; he punched it out.
+
+"Von Schlichten, right overhead. That you, Major Falkenberg? Nice
+going, major, how are your casualties?"
+
+"Not too bad. Twenty or thirty Kragans and loyal Skilkans, and eight
+Terrans killed, about as many wounded."
+
+"Pretty good, considering what you're running into. Get many of your
+Kragans mounted on those hipposaurs?"
+
+"About a hundred, a lot of 'saurs got shot, while we were leading
+them out from the stables."
+
+"Well, I can see geeks streaming away from the labor-camp, out the
+south end, going in the direction of the river. Use what cavalry you
+have on them, and what contragravity you can spare. I'll drop a few
+flares to show their position and direction."
+
+Anticipating him, the driver turned the airjeep and started toward the
+dry Hoork River. Von Schlichten nodded approval and told him to
+release 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. Some
+of it we can put into the air; the rest we can use to build
+barricades. None of it do we want the geeks getting hold of, and the
+equipment-park's outside our practical perimeter. I'll send people to
+help you move it."
+
+"No need to do that, sir; I have about a hundred and fifty loyal North
+Ullerans--foremen, technicians, overseers--who can handle it."
+
+"All right. Use your own judgment. Put the stuff back of the
+native-troops barracks, and between the power-plant and the Company
+office-buildings, and anywhere else you can." The lieutenant nudged
+him and pushed a couple of buttons on the dashboard.
+
+"Here go the flares, now."
+
+Immediately, a couple of airjeeps pounced in, to strafe the fleeing
+enemy. Somebody must have already been issuing orders on another
+wavelength; a number of Kragans, riding hipposaurs, were galloping
+into the light of the flares.
+
+"Now, let's have a look at the native barracks and the
+maintenance-yards," he said. "And then, we'll make a circuit around
+the Reservation, about two or three miles out. I'm not happy about
+where 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 know
+it 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 to
+wipe us out, themselves," von Schlichten said. "For the timidity and
+stupidity of our enemies, Allah make us truly thankful, amen. It's
+something no commander should depend on, but be glad when it happens.
+If Firkked had had a couple of regiments on hand outside the
+reservation to jump us as soon as the Tenth and the Zirks mutinied, he
+could have swamped us in twenty minutes and we'll all have had our
+throats cut by now."
+
+There was nothing going on in the area between the native barracks and
+the mountains except some sporadic firing as small patrols of Kragans
+clashed with clumps of fleeing mutineers. All the barracks, even those
+of the Rifles, were burning; the red-and-yellow danger-lights around
+the power-plant and the water-works and the explosives magazines were
+still on. Most of the floodlights were still on, and there was still
+some fighting around the maintenance-yard. It looked as though the
+survivors of the Tenth N.U.N.I. were in a few small pockets which were
+being squeezed out.
+
+There was nothing at all going on north of the Reservation; the
+countryside, by day a checkerboard of walled fields and small
+villages, was dark, except for a dim light, here and there, where the
+occupants of some farmhouse had been awakened by the noise of battle.
+The airjeep dropped lower, and the driver slid open the window beside
+him; von Schlichten could hear the grunts and snorts and squawks of
+farm-animals, similarly aroused.
+
+Then, two miles east of the Reservation, he caught a new sound--the
+flowing, riverlike, murmur of something vast on the move.
+
+"Hear that, lieutenant?" he asked. "Head for it, at about a thousand
+feet. 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 city
+mob."
+
+"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 to
+this side of the river, they'd be winded. They'd stop for a blow, and
+then 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 and
+punched the wavelength of the military airport.
+
+"Von Schlichten, my compliments to Colonel Jarman. Tell him there's a
+geek mob, or possibly Firkked's regulars, on the main highway from
+Skilk, two miles east of the Reservation. Get some combat
+contragravity over here, at once. We'll light them up for you. And
+tell Colonel Jarman to start flying patrols up and down along the
+Hoork River; this may not be the only gang that's coming out to see
+us."
+
+The sounds were directly below, now--the scuffing of horny-soled feet
+on the dirt road, the clink and rattle of slung weapons, the clicking
+and 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 was
+coming in again, down the road toward the advancing column. Von
+Schlichten peered into his all-armament sight, his foot on the
+machine-gun pedal and his fingers on the rocket buttons. The highway
+below was jammed with geeks, and they were all stopped dead and
+staring upward, as though hypnotized by the lights. A second later,
+they had recovered and were shooting--not at the airjeep, but at the
+four globes of blazing magnesium. Then he had the close-packed mass of
+non-humanity in his sights; he tramped the pedal and began punching
+buttons. He still had four rockets left by the time the mob was behind
+him.
+
+"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 in
+front of the mob, who now had their backs turned and were staring in
+the direction in which they had last seen the vehicle. Again, von
+Schlichten plowed them with rockets and harrowed them with his guns.
+Some of the Skilkans were trying to get over the high fences on either
+side of the road--really stockades of petrified tree-trunks. Others
+were firing, and this time they were shooting at the airjeep. It took
+one hit from a heavy shellosaur-rifle, and, immediately, the driver
+banked and turned away from the road.
+
+"Dammit, why did you do that?" von Schlichten demanded, lifting his
+foot from the gun-pedal. "Are you afraid of the kind of popguns those
+geeks are using?"
+
+"I am not afraid to risk my vehicle, or myself, sir," the lieutenant
+replied, with the extreme formality of a very junior officer chewing
+out a very senior one. "I am, however, afraid to risk my passenger.
+Generals are not expendable, sir; neither are they issued for use as
+clay pigeons."
+
+He was right, of course. Von Schlichten admitted it. "I'm too old to
+play cowboy, like this," he said. "Back to the Reservation, telecast
+station."
+
+Looking back over his shoulder, he saw eight or ten more flares
+alight, and the ground-flashes of exploding shells and rockets; the
+air above the road was sparkling with gun-flames. Jarman must have had
+some contragravity ready to be sent off on the instant.
+
+While he had been out, somebody had gotten a TV-pickup mounted on a
+contragravity-lifter and run up to two thousand feet, on the end of a
+steel-tough tensilon mooring-line. The big circular screen was lit,
+showing the whole Company Reservation, with the surrounding
+countryside foreshortened by perspective to the distant lights of
+Skilk. The map had been taken up from the floor, and a big
+terrain-board had been brought in from the Chief Engineer's office and
+set up in its place. In front of the screen, Paula Quinton, Barney
+Mordkovitz, Colonel Cheng-Li, and, conspicuously silent, Jules
+Keaveney sat drinking coffee and munching sandwiches. Half a dozen
+Terrans, of both sexes, were working furiously to get the markers
+which replaced the pink and white pills placed on the board, and one
+of Captain Inez Malavez's non-coms, with a headset, was getting
+combat reports directly from the switchboard. Everything was clicking
+like well-oiled machinery.
+
+On the TV-screen, the Residency area was ablaze with light, and so
+were the ship-docks, the airport and spaceport, the shops, and the
+maintenance-yard. On the terrain-board, the latter was now marked as
+completely in Company hands. The ruins of the native-troops barracks
+were still burning, and there was a twinkle of orange-red here and
+there among the ruins of the labor-camp. Much of the equipment for the
+polar mines had already been shifted into defensible ground. The rest
+of the circle was dark, except for the distant lights of Skilk, where
+the nuclear power plant was apparently still functioning in native
+hands.
+
+Then, without warning, a spot of white light blazed into being
+southeast of the Company area and southwest of Skilk, followed by
+another and another. Instantly, von Schlichten glanced up at the row
+of smaller screens, and on one of them saw the view as picked up by a
+patrolling airjeep.
+
+The army of King Firkked of Skilk had finally put in its appearance,
+coming in two columns, one southward from Skilk and the other
+northward along the west bank of the dry river. The former had crossed
+over and joined the latter, about three miles south of the
+Reservation. The scene in the screen was similar to the one he had,
+himself, witnessed through his armament-sight. The Skilkan regulars
+had been marching in formation, some on the road and some along
+parallel lanes and paths. They had the look of trained and disciplined
+troops, but they had made the same mistake as the rabble that had been
+shot up on the north side of the Reservation. Unused to attack from
+the air, they had all halted in place and were gaping open-mouthed,
+their opal teeth gleaming in the white flare-light. However, before
+the 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 thrown
+most of his available contragravity at them, including the
+combat-cars, that had already started to form the second wave of the
+attack on the mob to the north. Other flares bloomed in the darkness,
+and the fiery trails of rockets curved downward to end in yellow
+flashes on the ground.
+
+The airjeep with the pickup circled back; the troops on the road and
+in the adjoining fields had broken. The former were caught between the
+fences which made Ulleran roads such death-traps when under
+air-attack. The latter had dispersed, and were running away,
+individually and by squads; at first, it looked like a panic, but he
+could see officers signaling to the larger groups of fugitives to open
+out, apparently directing the flight. By this time, there were ten or
+twelve combat-cars and about twenty airjeeps at work. In the moving
+view from the pickup-jeep, he saw what looked like a 90-mm rocket land
+in the middle of a company that was still trying to defend itself with
+small-arms fire on the road, wiping out about half of them.
+
+"Make the most of it, boys," Barney Mordkovitz, his mouth full of
+sandwich, was saying. "Heave it to them; you won't get another chance
+like that at those buggers."
+
+"Why not?" Colonel Paula Quinton wanted to know. Her military
+education 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, if
+you noticed. And they'll keep out from between the fences."
+
+In the large screen, a quick succession of gun-flashes leaped up from
+the direction of the Hoork River and shells began bursting over the scene
+of the attack. The screen tuned to the pickup on the airjeep went
+dead; in the big screen, there was a twinkling of falling fire. Almost
+at 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 the
+big switchboard. "Lieutenant Kalanang's jeep was hit; Lieutenant
+Vermaas is cutting in his pickup on the same wavelength."
+
+The small screen lighted again. In the big screen, a cluster of
+magnesium-lights appeared above where the Skilkan gun had been; in the
+small 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, around
+the point of attack. Von Schlichten nodded approvingly.
+
+"I was wondering how long it'd take somebody to think of that," he
+said. "Granaries and forage-stacks on some of these farms. They'll
+burn for half an hour, at least." He looked at his watch. "And by that
+time, it'll be daylight."
+
+"As far as we know, that was the only 75-mm gun Firkked had," Colonel
+Cheng-Li said. "He has at least six, possibly ten, 40-mm's. It's a
+wonder we haven't seen anything of them."
+
+"Well, there's no way of being sure," Jules Keaveney said, "but I
+have an idea they're all at or around the Palace. Firkked knows about
+how much contragravity we have. He's probably wondering why we aren't
+bombing 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 contragravity
+could Firkked scrape together, for an attack on us? I've been
+expecting a geek _Luftwaffe_ over here, at any moment."
+
+Colonel Cheng-Li studied the smoking tip of his cigarette for a
+moment. "Well, Firkked owns, personally, three ten-passenger aircars,
+a thing like a troop-carrier that he transports some of his courtiers
+around in, four airjeeps armed with a pair of 15-mm machine-guns
+apiece, and two big lorries. There are possibly two hundred vehicles
+of all types in Skilk and the country around, but some of them are in
+the hands of natives friendly to us and or hostile to Firkked. I can
+get the exact figures from the Constabulary office at Company House."
+
+"That's close enough," von Schlichten told him. "And there'll be
+oodles of thermoconcentrate-fuel, and blasting explosives. Colonel
+Quinton, suppose you call Ed Wallingsby, the Chief Engineer, right
+away; have him commissioned colonel. Tell him to get to work making
+this place secure against air attack; tell him to consult with Colonel
+Jarman. Tell him to get those geeks Leavitt has penned in the
+repair-dock at the airport and use them to dig slit-trenches and fill
+sandbags and so on. He can use Kragan limited-duty wounded to guard
+them.... Mr. Keaveney, you'll begin setting up something in the way of
+an ARP-organization. You'll have to get along on what nobody else
+wants. You will also consult with Colonel Jarman, and with Colonel
+Wallingsby. Better get started on it now. Just think of everything
+around here that could go wrong in case of an air attack, and try to
+do something about it in advance."
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+The Geek Luftwaffe and the Kragan Airlift
+
+
+At 0245, an attack developed on the northwestern corner of the
+Reservation, in the direction of the explosives magazines. It turned
+out to be relatively trivial. Remnants of the mob that had been broken
+up by air attack on the road had gotten together and were making
+rushes in small bands, keeping well spread out. Beating them off took
+considerable ammunition, but it was accomplished with negligible
+casualties to the defenders. They finally stopped coming around
+daylight.
+
+In the meantime, Themistocles M'zangwe called from Konkrook, appearing
+in the screen with his left arm in a freshly white sling.
+
+"What the hell have you been doing to yourself?" von Schlichten wanted
+to know.
+
+"Crossbow-bolt, about half an hour ago. A couple of inches lower and
+acting 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 making
+out? Have Kankad's people started coming in, yet?"
+
+"Oh, yes, about six hundred of them have gotten in already, in the
+damnedest collection of vehicles you ever saw. Kankad must be using
+every scrap of contragravity he has; it's a regular airborne
+Dunkirk-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 here
+have scraped together an air-force of their own--farm-lorries,
+aircars, that sort of thing--and they're using them to bomb us here
+and at the mainland farm, mostly with nitroglycerine. We've shot down
+about twenty of them, but they're still coming. They tried a
+boat-attack across the Channel; that's how I got this. We've been
+doing some bombing, ourselves; we made a down payment for Eric Blount
+and Hendrik Lemoyne. Took a fifty-ton tank off a fuel-lorry, fitted it
+with a detonator, filled it with thermoconcentrate, and ferried it
+over on the _Elmoran_ and dumped it on the Keegarkan Embassy. It must
+have landed in the middle of the central court; in about fifteen
+seconds, flames were coming out every window in the place." His face
+became less jovial. "We had something pretty bad happen here, too," he
+said. "That Konkrook Fencibles rabble of Prince Jaizerd's mutinied,
+along with the others; they got into the hospital and butchered
+everybody in the place, patients and staff. The Kragans got there too
+late to save anybody, but they wiped out the Fencibles. Jaizerd
+himself was the only one they took alive, and he didn't stay that way
+very long."
+
+"How are you making out with your Civil Administration crowd?"
+
+M'zangwe grimaced. "I haven't had to put any of them under actual
+arrest, so far, but we've had to keep Buhrmann away from the
+communications equipment by force. He wanted to call you up and chew
+you 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 Uller
+massacred by detail, when you could save Konkrook by bringing them
+all here."
+
+"You tell him I'm going to hold this planet, not just one city. Tell
+him I have a sense of my duty to the Company and its stockholders, if
+he 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 state
+about 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 of
+the perimeter stopped entirely. Wallingsby had the three-hundred-odd
+Skilkan laborers at work; he had gathered up all the tarpaulin he could
+find, and had the two sewing-machines in the tentmaker's shop running on
+sandbags. Jules Keaveney, to von Schlichten's agreeable surprise, had
+taken hold of his ARP assignment, and was doing an efficient job in
+organizing for fire-fighting, damage-control and first aid. Colonel
+Jarman had his airjeeps and combat-cars working in ever-widening circles
+over the countryside, shooting up everything in sight that even looked
+like contragravity equipment. Some of these patrols had to be recalled,
+around 1030, when sporadic nuisance-sniping began from the side of the
+mountain to the west. And, along with everything else, Paula Quinton
+managed, along with her other work, to get a complete digest prepared of
+the situation elsewhere in the Terran-occupied parts of the planet.
+
+The situation at Konkrook was brightening steadily. The second wave of
+Kankad's improvised airlift, reenforced by contragravity from
+Konkrook, had come in; there were now close to two thousand fresh
+Kragans on Gongonk Island and the mainland farms, Kankad himself with
+them. The _Aldebaran_ had reached Kankad's Town, and was loading
+another thousand Kragans.... There was nothing more from Keegark. A
+message from Colonel MacKinnon had come in at dawn, to the effect that
+the geeks had penetrated his last defenses and that he was about to
+blow up the Residency; thereafter Keegark went off the air.... By
+0730, the _Northern Star_ had landed the regiment Murderers, armed
+with first-quality Terran infantry-rifles and a few machine-guns and
+bazookas, at the Palace at Krink, and by 0845 she had returned with
+another regiment, the Jeel-Feeders. The three-lane street connecting
+the Palace and the Residency had been widened to six, and then to
+eight.... Guido Karamessinis, at Grank, was still at uneasy peace with
+King Yoorkerk, who was still undecided whether the rebels or the
+Company were going to be the eventual victors, and afraid to take any
+irrevocable step in either direction.... Eight men and four women, the
+survivors of a trading-station on the eastern shore of Takkad Sea,
+reached Konkrook in a lorry; another trading station, on the south
+shore, reported by telecast that the natives there had refused to rise
+against them, and had crucified five of Rakkeed's disciples who had
+come among them preaching _znidd suddabit_.
+
+At 1100, Paula Quinton and Barney Mordkovitz virtually ordered him to
+get some sleep. He went to his quarters at Company House, downed a
+spaceship-captain's-size drink of honey-rum, and slept until 1600. As
+he dressed and shaved, he could hear, through the open window, the
+slow sputter of small-arms' fire, punctuated by the occasional
+_whump-whump-whump_ of 40-mm auto-cannon or the hammering of a
+machine-gun.
+
+Returning to his command-post at the telecast station, the
+terrain-board showed that the perimeter of defense had been pushed out
+in a bulge at the northwest corner; the TV-screen pictured a crude
+breast-work of petrified tree-trunks, sandbags, mining machinery,
+packing-cases and odds-and-ends, upon which Wallingsby's native
+laborers were working under guard while a skirmish-line of Kragans had
+been thrown out another four or five hundred yards and were exchanging
+pot-shots with Skilkans on the gullied hillside.
+
+"Where's Colonel Quinton?" he asked. "She ought to be taking a turn in
+the sack, now."
+
+"She's taking one," Major Falkenberg, who had commanded the action at
+the native-troops barracks and the labor-camp, the night before, told
+him. "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 the
+perimeter on the screen. "Whose idea was that?" he asked. "It's a good
+one; I ought to have thought of it, myself."
+
+"Your new adjutant," Falkenberg grinned. "She asked somebody what
+those big domes, up there, were. When they told her there were ten
+thousand tons of thermoconcentrate, five thousand tons of
+blasting-explosives, and five tons of plutonium, under them, she
+damned near fainted, and then she ordered that, right away."
+
+More reports came in. The entire garrison of the small Residency at
+Kwurk, the most northern of the eastern shore Free Cities, had arrived
+at Kankad's Town in two hundred-foot contragravity scows and five
+aircars. Two of the aircars arrived half an hour behind the rest of
+the refugee flotilla, having turned off at Keegark to pay their
+respects to King Orgzild. They reported the Keegark Residency in
+ruins, its central buildings vanished in a huge crater; the _Jan
+Smuts_ and the _Christiaan De Wett_ were still in the Company docks,
+both apparently damaged by the blast which had destroyed the
+Residency. One of the aircars had rocketed and machine-gunned some
+Keegarkans who appeared to be trying to repair them; the other blew up
+King Orgzild's nitroglycerine plant. Von Schlichten called Konkrook
+and ordered a bombing-mission against Keegark organized, to make sure
+the two ships stayed out of service.
+
+The _Northern Star_ was still bringing loyal troops into Krink. King
+Jonkvank, whom von Schlichten called, was highly elated.
+
+"We are killing traitors wherever we find them!" he exulted. "The city
+is yellow with their blood; their heads are piled everywhere! How is
+it with you at Skilk?"
+
+"We have killed many, also," von Schlichten boasted. "And tonight, we
+will kill more; we are preparing bombs of great destruction, which we
+will rain down upon Skilk until there is not one stone left upon
+another, or one infant of a day's age left alive!"
+
+Jonkvank reacted as he was intended to. "Oh, no, general, don't do all
+that!" he exclaimed. "You promised me that I should have Skilk, on the
+word of a Terran. Are you going to give me a city of ruins and
+corpses? Ruins are no good to anybody, and I am not a Jeel, to eat
+corpses."
+
+Von Schlichten shrugged. "When you are strong, you can flog your
+enemies 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 to
+promise. "All my best regiments: the Murderers, the Jeel-Feeders, the
+Corpse-Reapers, the Devastators, the Fear-Makers. But, now that we
+have stopped this sinful rebellion, here, I can't take chances that it
+will break out again as soon as I strip the city of troops."
+
+Von Schlichten nodded. Jonkvank's argument made sense; he would have
+taken a similar position, himself.
+
+"Well, get as many as you can over here, as soon as possible," he
+said. "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 of
+the big screen, eating his dinner. There had been light ground-action
+along the southern end of the perimeter--King Firkked's regulars,
+reenforced by Zirk tribesmen and levies of townspeople, all of whom
+seemed to have firearms, were filtering in through the ruins of the
+labor-camp and the wreckage of the equipment-park--and there was
+renewed sniping from the mountainside. The long afternoon of the
+northern autumn dragged on; finally, at 2200, the sun set, and it was
+not fully dark for another hour. For some time, there was an ominous
+quiet, and then, at 0030, the enemy began attacking in force, driving
+herds of livestock--lumbering six-legged brutes bred by the North
+Ullerans for food--to test the defenses for electrified wire and
+land-mines. Most of these were shot down or blown up, but a few got as
+far as the wire, which, by now, had been strung and electrified
+completely around the perimeter.
+
+Behind them came parties of Skilkan regulars with long-handled
+insulated cutters; a couple of cuts were made in the wire, and a
+section of it went dead. The line, at this point, had been rather
+thinly held; the defenders immediately called for air-support, and
+Jarman ordered fifteen of his remaining twenty airjeeps and five
+combat-cars into the fight. No sooner were they committed than the
+radar on the commercial airport control-tower picked up air vehicles
+approaching from the north, and the air-raid sirens began howling and
+the 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 steel
+doors and window-shutters which were electrically operated and
+centrally controlled. These slammed shut in every occupied building.
+The contragravity which had been sent to support the ground-defense at
+the south side of the Reservation turned to meet this new threat, and
+everything else available, including the four heavy airtanks, lifted
+up. Meanwhile, guns began firing from the ground and from rooftops.
+
+There had been four aircars, ordinary passenger vehicles equipped with
+machine-guns on improvised mounts, and ten big lorries converted into
+bombers, in the attack. All the lorries, and all but one of the
+makeshift fighter-escort, were shot down, but not before explosive and
+thermoconcentrate bombs were dumped all over the place. One lorry
+emptied its load of thermoconcentrate-bombs on the control-building at
+the airport, starting a raging fire and putting the radar out of
+commission. A repair-shop at the ordnance-depot was set on fire, and a
+quantity of small-arms and machine-gun ammunition piled outside for
+transportation to the outer defenses blew up. An explosive bomb landed
+on the roof of the building between Company House and the telecast
+station, blowing a hole in the roof and demolishing the upper floor.
+And another load of thermoconcentrate, missing the power-plant, set
+fire to the dry grass between it and the ruins of the native-troops
+barracks.
+
+Before the air-attack had been broken up, the soldiers of King Firkked
+and their irregular supporters were swarming through the dead section
+of wire. They had four or five big farm-tractors, nuclear-powered but
+unequipped with contragravity-generators, which they were using like
+ground-tanks of the First Century. This attack penetrated to the
+middle of the Reservation before it was stopped and the attackers
+either killed or driven out; for the first time since daybreak, the
+red-and-yellow lights came on around the power-plant.
+
+As soon as the combined air and ground attack was beaten off, von
+Schlichten ordered all his available contragravity up, flying patrols
+around the Reservation and retaliatory bombing missions against Skilk,
+and began bombarding the city with his 90-mm guns. A number of fires
+broke out, and at about 0200 a huge expanding globe of orange-red
+flame soared up from the city.
+
+"There goes Firkked's thermoconcentrate stock," he said to Paula, who
+was 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 been
+destroyed, but enough remained to pelt the Reservation and the Company
+buildings with incendiaries, when a second and more severe air-attack
+developed, consisting of forty or fifty makeshift lorry-bombers and
+fifteen aircars. The previous attack von Schlichten had viewed in the
+screen at the telecast station; it was his questionable good fortune
+to observe the second one directly, having been out inspecting the
+defenses around the ordnance-depot at the time.
+
+Like the first, the second air-attack was beaten off, or, more
+exactly, down. Most of the enemy contragravity was destroyed; at least
+two dozen vehicles crashed inside the Reservation. As in the first
+instance, there was a simultaneous ground attack from the southern
+side, with a demonstration-attack at the north end. For a while, von
+Schlichten found himself fighting hand-to-hand, first with his pistol
+and then, when his ammunition was gone, with a picked-up rifle and
+bayonet. It was full daylight before the last of the attackers was
+either killed or driven out.
+
+Five minutes later, while he was reloading his pistol-clips with
+salvaged cartridges, the _Northern Star_ came bulking over the
+mountains from the west.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+Of Princedoms Which Have Been Won by Conquest
+
+
+Holstering his pistol, he raced for the telecast station, to receive a
+call from a Colonel Khalid ib'n Talal, a Zanzibar Arab, aboard the
+approaching ship.
+
+"I've one of Jonkvank's regiments, the Jeel-Feeders, armed with Terran
+9-mm rifles and a few bazookas; I have a company of our Zirks, with
+their mounts, and a battalion of the Sixth N.U.N.I.; I also have four
+90-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 and
+unprintable military cliche. "Try landing south of the Reservation, a
+little west of the ruins of the labor-camp," he advised. "The bulk of
+Firkked's army is in that section, and I want them run out as soon as
+possible. We'll give you all the contragravity and fire support we
+can."
+
+The _Northern Star_ let down slowly, firing her guns and dropping
+bombs; as she descended, rifle-fire spurted from all her lower-deck
+portholes. There was cheering, human and Ulleran, from inside the
+battered defense-perimeter; combat-cars, airjeeps, and improvised
+bombers lifted out to strafe the Skilkans on the ground, and the four
+airtanks moved out to take position and open fire with their 90-mm's,
+helping to flush King Firkked's regulars and auxiliaries out of the
+gullies and ruins and drive them south along the mountain, away from
+where the ship would land and also away from the city of Skilk. The
+_Northern Star_ set down quickly, and troops and artillery began to be
+unloaded, 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's
+infantry regiments, and by 1300, when the fourth load arrived from
+Krink, the fighting was entirely on the eastern bank of the dry Hoork
+River. This last contingent of reenforcements was landed in the
+eastern suburbs of Skilk and began fighting their way into the city
+from the rear.
+
+It was evident, however, that the pacification of Skilk would not be
+accomplished as rapidly as von Schlichten wished--street fighting,
+against a determined enemy, is notoriously slow work--and he decided
+to risk the _Northern Star_ in an attack against the Palace itself,
+and, over the objections of Paula Quinton, Jules Keaveney, and Barney
+Mordkovitz, to lead the attack in person.
+
+Inside the city, he found that the Zirk cavalry from Krink had thrust
+up one of the broader streets to within a thousand yards of the
+Palace, and, supported by infantry, contragravity, and a couple of
+airtanks, were pounding and hacking at a mass of Skilkans whose
+uniform lack of costume prevented distinguishing between soldiery and
+townsfolk. Very few of these, he observed, seemed to be using
+firearms; with his glasses, he could see them shooting with long
+northern air-rifles and a few Takkad Sea crossbows. Either weapon
+would shoot clear through a Terran or half-way through an Ulleran at
+fifty yards, but at over two hundred they were almost harmless. There
+were a few fires still burning from the bombardment of the night
+before--Ulleran, and particularly North Ulleran, cities did not burn
+well--and the blaze which had consumed the bulk of Firkked's stock of
+thermoconcentrate fuel had long ago burned out, leaving an area of six
+or eight blocks blackened and lifeless.
+
+The ship let down, while the six combat-cars which had accompanied her
+buzzed the Palace roof, strafing it to keep it clear, and the Kragans
+aboard fired with their rifles. She came to rest on seven-eighths
+weight reduction, and even before the gangplanks were run out, the
+Kragans were dropping to the flat roof, running to stairhead
+penthouses and tossing grenades into them.
+
+The taking of the Palace was a gruesome business. Knowing exactly how
+much mercy they would have shown had they been storming the Residency,
+Firkked's soldiers and courtiers fought desperately and had to be
+exterminated, floor by floor, room by room, hallway by hallway. There
+was some attempt at escape from the ground floor as von Schlichten and
+his Kragans fought their way down from above, but the _Northern Star_
+and her escort of combat-cars and airjeeps bombed and machine-gunned
+and 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 a
+loyal native-officer of the Sixth N.U.N.I. shouted offers of quarter
+and orders to the troops to spare any who surrendered.
+
+Driving down from above, von Schlichten and his Kragans slithered over
+floors increasingly greasy with yellow Ulleran blood. He had picked up
+a broadsword at the foot of the first stairway down; a little later,
+he tossed it aside in favor of another, better balanced and with a
+better guard. There was a furious battle at the doorways of the throne
+room; finally, climbing over the bodies of their own dead and the
+enemy's, they were inside.
+
+Here there was no question of quarter whatever, at least as long as
+Firkked lived; North Ulleran nobles did not surrender under the eyes
+of their king, and North Ulleran kings did not surrender their thrones
+alive. There was also a tradition, of which von Schlichten was
+mindful, that a king must only be killed by his conqueror, in personal
+combat, with steel.
+
+With a wedge of Kragan bayonets around him and the picked-up
+broadsword in his hand, he fought his way to the throne, where Firkked
+waited, a sword in one of his upper hands, his Spear of State in the
+other, and a dagger in each lower hand. With his left hand, von
+Schlichten detached the bayonet from the rifle of one of his followers
+and went forward, 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 swords 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.
+
+It was not as bad as it looked, however. The ornate Spear of State, in
+spite of its long, cruel-looking blade, was not an especially good
+combat-weapon, at least for one hand, and Firkked seemed confused by
+the very abundance of his armament. After a few slashes and jabs, von
+Schlichten knocked the unwieldy thing from his opponent's hand. This
+raised a fearful ululation from the Skilkan nobility, who had stopped
+fighting to watch the duel; evidently it was the very worst sort of a
+bad omen. Firkked, seemingly relieved to be disencumbered of the
+thing, caught his sword in both hands and aimed a roundhouse swing at
+von Schlichten's head; von Schlichten dodged, crippled one of
+Firkked's lower hands with a quick slash, and lunged at the royal
+belly. Firkked used his remaining dagger to parry, backed a step
+closer to his throne, and took another swing with his sword, which von
+Schlichten parried on the bayonet in his left hand. Then, backing, he
+slashed at the inside of Firkked's leg with the thousand-year-old
+_coup-de-Jarnac_. Firkked, unable to support the weight of his
+dense-tissued body on one leg, stumbled; von Schlichten ran him neatly
+through the breast with his sword and through the throat with the
+bayonet.
+
+There was silence in the throne room for an instant, and then, with a
+horrible collective shriek, the Skilkans threw down their weapons. One
+of von Schlichten's Kragans slung his rifle and picked up the Spear of
+State with all four hands, taking his post ceremoniously behind the
+victor. A couple of others dragged the body of Firkked to the edge of
+the dais, and one of them drew his leaf-shaped short-sword and
+beheaded 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 King
+Firkked'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 was
+King in Skilk. If he had not dared raise his feeble hand against the
+might of the Uller Company, he would still be alive, and his Spear
+would still be borne behind him. So must all those who rise against
+the 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 it
+up, like a piece of stage property no longer required for this scene
+but 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 the
+filming of the scene, exploded. "I thought you had to kill him
+yourself in order to encourage your soldiers; I didn't think you
+wanted to make a movie of it to show your friends. I'm through; you
+can find yourself a new adjutant!"
+
+Von Schlichten tapped the cigarette on the gold-and-platinum case and
+stared at her through his monocle.
+
+"You can't resign," he told her. "Resignations of officers are not
+being accepted until the end of hostilities. In any case, I shouldn't
+care to have you go; you're the best adjutant, Hideyoshi O'Leary not
+excepted, I ever had. Sit down, colonel." He lit the cigarette. "Your
+politico-military education still needs a little filling in.
+
+"At Grank, we have two ships. One is the _Northern Lights_, sister
+ship of the _Northern Star_. The other is the cruiser _Procyon_, the
+only 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 of
+courts-martial, when things get stabilized to a point where we can
+afford such luxuries. As it is, we need those ships desperately, and
+as soon as he gets in, I'm sending Hideyoshi O'Leary to Grank with
+the _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 of
+the crowbars he's going to use."
+
+"Oh! I get it!" Her eyes widened with pleasure at having finally
+caught on; she accepted the cigarette and the light von Schlichten
+offered. "Good old _nervenkrieg_!"
+
+"Yes. A little idea I adapted from my Nazi ancestors of four hundred
+and fifty years ago. Hideyoshi's going to treat King Yoorkerk to a
+movie-show. Want to bet he won't loosen up and release _Procyon_ and
+_Northern Lights_ and unblockade the Grank Residency after he sees
+that shot of Firkked's head leering at him off the point of that
+overgrown asagai? As I said, that's only the last scene, too. I've
+been having scenes shot all through this fight; some of them are
+really horrifying."
+
+"But why did you have to fight Firkked yourself?" she asked. "You took
+an awful chance, with two hands to his four."
+
+"Not so awful, remember what I told you about the physical limitations
+of Ullerans. But I had to kill him myself, with a sword; according to
+local custom that makes me King of Skilk."
+
+"Why, your Majesty!" She rose and curtsied mockingly. "But I thought
+you were going to make Jonkvank King of Skilk."
+
+He shook his head. "Just Viceroy," he corrected. "I'm handing the
+Spear 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't
+be much more at Krink either. That'll take a little longer--there'll
+have to be military missions, and economic missions, and
+trade-agreements, and all the rest of it, first--but he's on the way
+to becoming a puppet-prince."
+
+Half an hour later, a large and excessively ornate air-launch,
+specially built at the Konkrook shipyards for King Jonkvank, was
+sighted coming over the mountain from the east. An escort of
+combat-cars was sent to meet it, and a battalion of Kragans and the
+survivors of Firkked's court were drawn up on the Palace roof.
+
+"His Majesty, Jonkvank, King of Krink!" the former herald of King
+Firkked's court, now herald to King Carlos von Schlichten, shouted,
+banging on a brass shield with the flat of his sword, as Jonkvank
+descended from his launch, attended by a group of his nobles and his
+Spear of State, with Hideyoshi O'Leary and Francis N. Shapiro
+shepherding them. As the guests advanced across the roof, the herald
+banged again on his shield.
+
+"His Majesty, Carlos von Schlichten,"--which came out more or less as
+Karlok vonk Zlikdenk--"King, by right of combat, of Skilk!"
+
+Von Schlichten advanced to meet his fellow-monarch, his own Spear of
+State, with Firkked's head still grinning from it, two paces behind
+him.
+
+Jonkvank stopped, his face contorted with saurian rage.
+
+"What is this?" he demanded. "You told me that I could be King of
+Skilk; 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 addressing
+another. "My word was that you should reign in Skilk, and my word
+stands. But these things must be done decently, according to custom
+and law. I killed Firkked in single combat. Had I not done so, the
+Spear of Skilk would have been left lying, for any of the young of
+Firkked 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 is
+mine, and what is mine I can give as I please. I now give you the
+Spear of Skilk, to carry in my name, as I promised."
+
+The Kragan who was carrying the ceremonial weapon tossed the head of
+Firkked from the point; another Kragan kicked it aside and advanced to
+wipe the spear-blade with a rag. Von Schlichten took the Spear and
+gave it to Jonkvank.
+
+"This is not good!" one of the Skilkan nobles protested. He had a
+better right than any of the others to protest; he had, a few hours
+before, ridden in at the head of a company of his retainers to swear
+loyalty to the Company. "That you should rule over us, yes. You killed
+Firkked in single combat, and you are the soldier of the Company,
+which is mighty, as all here have seen. But that this foreigner be
+given the Spear of Skilk, that is not good!"
+
+Some of the others, emboldened by his example, were jabbering
+agreement.
+
+"Listen, all of you!" von Schlichten shouted. "Here is no question of
+Krink 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. He
+will come and live among you, and later he will travel back and forth
+between Krink and Skilk, and he will leave the Spear of Krink in
+Krink, and the Spear of Skilk in Skilk, and in Skilk he will be a
+Skilkan."
+
+That seemed to satisfy everybody except Jonkvank, and he had wit
+enough not to make an issue of it. He even had the Spear of Krink
+carried back aboard his launch, out of sight, and when he accompanied
+von 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 with
+von Schlichten, in the room that had been King Firkked's bedchamber,
+however, he exploded: "What is all this foolishness which you promised
+these people in my name and which I must now carry out? That I am to
+leave the Spear of Skilk in Skilk and the Spear of Krink in Krink, and
+come here to live...."
+
+"You wish to hold Skilk?" von Schlichten asked.
+
+"I intend to hold Skilk. To begin with, there shall be a great killing
+here. A very great killing: of all those who advised that fool of a
+Firkked to start this business; of those who gave shelter to the false
+prophet, Rakkeed, when he was here; of the faithless priests who gave
+ear to his abominable heresies and allowed him to spew out his
+blasphemies in the temples; of those who sent spies to Krink, to
+corrupt and pervert my soldiers and nobles; of those who...."
+
+"All that is as it should be," von Schlichten agreed. "Except that it
+must be done quickly and all at once, before the memories of these
+crimes fade from the minds of the people. And great care must be taken
+to kill only those who can be proven to be guilty of something; thus
+it will be said that the justice of King Jonkvank is terrible to
+evildoers but a protection and a shield to those who keep the peace
+and obey the laws. Thus you will gain the name of being a wise and
+just king. And when the priests are to be killed it should be done
+under the direction of those other priests who were faithful to the
+gods and whom King Firkked drove out of their temples, and it must be
+done in the name of the gods. Thus will you be esteemed a pious, and
+not an impious, king. As to why you must be a Skilkan in Skilk, you
+heard the words of Flurknurk, and how the others agreed with him. It
+must 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 do
+so, nor must you increase the taxes, and you must not confiscate the
+estates of those who are put to death, for the death of parents is
+always forgiven before the loss of patrimonies. And you should select
+certain Skilkan nobles, and become the father of their young, and
+above all, you must leave none of the young of Firkked alive, to raise
+rebellion 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 cannot
+prevail against you, or against the Company as long as you are the
+Company's upper sword-arm!"
+
+Honesty tempted von Schlichten, for a moment, to disclaim originality
+for the principles he had just enunciated, even at the price of trying
+to pronounce the name of Niccolo Machiavelli with a geek-speaker. On
+second thought, however, considerations of policy restrained him. If
+Jonkvank ever heard of _The Prince_, nothing would satisfy him short
+of an Ulleran translation, and von Schlichten would have been just
+about as happy over an Ulleran translation of a complete set of
+Bethe-cycle bomb specifications.
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+The Shadow of Niflheim
+
+
+The sun slid lower and lower toward the horizon behind them as the
+aircar bulleted south along the broad valley and dry bed of the Hoork
+River, nearing the zone of equal day and night. Hassan Bogdanoff drove
+while Harry Quong finished his lunch, then changed places to begin his
+own. Von Schlichten got two bottles of beer from the refrigerated
+section of the lunch-hamper and opened one for Paula Quinton and one
+for himself.
+
+"What are we going to do with these geeks,"--she was using the nasty
+and derogatory word unconsciously and by custom, now--"after this is
+all 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 of
+political power in every part of this planet that we occupy, and as
+soon as we're consolidated around and north of Takkad Sea, we're going
+to have to move in elsewhere," he replied. "Keegark, Konkrook, and the
+Free Cities, of course, will be relatively easy. They're in arms
+against us now, and we can take them over by force. We had to make
+that deal with Jonkvank, or, rather, I did, so that will be a slower
+process, but we'll get it done in time. If I know that pair as well as
+I think I do, Jonkvank and Yoorkerk will give us plenty of pretexts,
+before long. Then, we can start giving them government by law instead
+of by royal decree, and real courts of justice; put an end to the
+head-payment system, and to these arbitrary mass arrests and
+tax-delinquency imprisonments that are nothing but slave-raids by the
+geek princes on their own people. And, gradually, abolish serfdom. In
+a couple of centuries, this planet will be fit to admit to the
+Federation, like Odin and Freya."
+
+"Well, won't that depend a lot on whom the Company sends here to take
+Harrington'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 long
+time to come, and even the Banking Cartel and the mercantile interests
+in the Company are going to realize that, and see the necessity for
+taking political control. The Federation Government owns a bigger
+interest in the Company than the public realizes, too; they've always
+favored it. And just to make sure, I'm sending Hid O'Leary to Terra on
+the next ship, to make a full report on the situation."
+
+"You think it'll be cleared up by then? The _City of Montevideo_ is
+due in from Niflheim in a little under three months."
+
+"It'll have to be cleared up by then. We can't keep this war going
+more 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 been
+progressing, at that," he said. "You know, a lot of professional
+officers, even up to field rank in the combat branches, seem to think
+that ammo comes down miraculously from Heaven, in contragravity
+lorries, every time they pray into a radio for it. It doesn't; it has
+to be produced as fast as it's expended, and we haven't been doing
+that. So we'll have to lick these geeks before it runs out, because we
+can't lick them with gunbutts and bayonets."
+
+"Well, how about nuclear weapons?" Paula asked. "I hate to suggest
+it--I know what they did on Mimir, and Fenris, and Midgard, and what
+they did on Terra, during the First Century. But it may be our only
+chance."
+
+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, the
+next-to-last--thing I'd want to see on Uller. Fortunately, or
+unfortunately, it's a decision I won't have to make. There isn't a
+single nuclear bomb on the planet. The Company's always refused to
+allow 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 make
+A-bombs, at least."
+
+"There isn't anybody here who even knows how to make one. Most of our
+nuclear engineers could work one up, in about three months, when we'd
+either not need one or not be alive."
+
+"Dr. Gomes, who came in on the _Pretoria_, two weeks ago, can make
+them," she contradicted. "He built at least a dozen of them on
+Niflheim, to use in activating volcanoes and bringing ore-bearing lava
+to the surface."
+
+Von Schlichten's hand, bringing his lighter to the tip of his
+cigarette, 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 had
+to do that, when a question of interstellar time-relations arose.
+
+"About three-fifty days ago, Galactic Standard. They'd put off the
+first shot, six bombs, before I got in from Terra. I saw the second
+shot a day or so before I left Niflheim on the _Canberra_. Dr. Gomes
+had 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?" he
+asked 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; he
+came to Uller on the _Canberra_. Dr. Murillo was sorry to lose him. He
+understood Lingua Terra perfectly; Dr. Murillo could talk to him, the
+way 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," von
+Schlichten told her. "Especially Kali.... Harry! See if you can get
+some more speed out of this can. I want to get to Konkrook while it's
+still there!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was full dark when Konkrook came in view beyond the East Konk
+Mountains, a lurid smear on the underside of the clouds, and, at
+Gongonk Island and at the Company farms to the south, a couple of
+bunches of searchlights fingering about in the sky. When von
+Schlichten turned on the outside sound-pickup, he could hear the
+distant tom-tomming of heavy guns, and the crash of shells and bombs.
+Keeping the car high enough to be above the trajectories of incoming
+shells, Harry Quong circled over the city while Hassan Bogdanoff
+talked to Gongonk Island on the radio.
+
+The city was in a bad way. There were seventy-five to a hundred big
+fires going, and a new one started in a rising ball of thermoconcentrate
+flame while they watched. The three gun-cutters, _Elmoran_, _Gaucho_,
+and _Bushranger_, and about fifty big freight lorries converted to
+bombers, were shuttling back and forth between the island and the city.
+The Royal Palace was on fire from end to end, and the entire waterfront
+and industrial district were in flames. Combat-cars and airjeeps were
+diving in to shell and rocket and machine-gun streets and buildings. He
+saw six big bomber-lorries move in dignified procession to unload, one
+after the other, on a row of buildings along what the Terrans called
+South Tenth Street, and on the roofs of buildings a block away, red and
+blue flares were burning, and he could see figures, both human and
+Ulleran, setting up mortars and machine-guns.
+
+Landing on the top stage of Company House, on the island, they were
+met by a Terran whom von Schlichten had seen, a few days ago, bossing
+native-labor at the spaceport, but who was now wearing a major's
+insignia. He greeted von Schlichten with a salute which he must have
+learned from some movie about the ancient French Foreign Legion. Von
+Schlichten 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; when
+von Schlichten and Paula reached the office, everybody was crowded at
+the door to greet them: Themistocles M'zangwe, his arm in a sling;
+Hans Meyerstein, the Johannesburg lawyer, who seemed to have even more
+Bantu blood than the brigadier-general; Morton Buhrmann, the
+Commercial Superintendent; Laviola, the Fiscal Secretary; a dozen or
+so other officers and civil administrators. There was a hubbub of
+greetings, and he was pleased to detect as much real warmth from the
+civil administration crowd as from the officers.
+
+"Well, I'm glad to be back with you," he replied, generally. "And let
+me present Colonel Paula Quinton, my new adjutant; Hid O'Leary's on
+duty in the north.... Them, this was a perfectly splendid piece of
+work 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 behaved
+simply above praise." He turned to King Kankad, who was wearing a pair
+of automatics in shoulder-holsters for his upper hands and another
+pair in cross-body belt holsters for his lower. "And what I've said
+for anybody else goes double for you, Kankad," he added, clapping the
+Kragan on the shoulder.
+
+"All he did was save the lot of us!" M'zangwe said. "We were hanging
+on by our fingernails here till his people started coming in. And
+then, after you sent the _Aldebaran_...."
+
+"Where is the _Aldebaran_, by the way? I didn't see her when I came
+in."
+
+"Based on Kankad's, flying bombardment against Keegark, and keeping
+an eye out for those ships. Prinsloo caught the _De Wett_ in the docks
+there and smashed her, but the _Jan Smuts_ got away, and we haven't
+been able to locate the _Oom Paul Kruger_, either. They're probably
+both 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 this
+long, and Orgzild's had plenty of time to realize it," von Schlichten
+said. "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 rid
+of them.... How's Hid been making out, at Grank, by the way? I didn't
+have 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, tell
+him, somebody!" ... "No, get Hid on the screen; it's his story!"
+
+Somebody busied himself at the switchboard. The rest of them sat down
+at the long conference-table. Laviola and Meyerstein and Buhrmann were
+especially obsequious in seating von Schlichten in Sid Harrington's
+old chair, and in getting a chair for Paula Quinton. After a while,
+the jumbled colors on the big screen resolved themselves into an image
+of Hideyoshi O'Leary, grinning like a pussy-cat beside an empty
+goldfish-bowl.
+
+"Well, what happened?" von Schlichten asked, after they had exchanged
+greetings. "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 that
+he is and always was the true and ever-loving friend of the Company;
+he acted to prevent quote certain disloyal elements unquote from
+harming the people and property of the Company. _Procyon's_ on the way
+to Konkrook. I'm holding _Northern Lights_ here and _Northern Star_ at
+Skilk; where do you want them sent?"
+
+"Leave _Northern Star_ at Skilk, for the time being. Tell the
+Company's great and good friend King Yoorkerk that the Company expects
+him to contribute some soldiers for the campaign here and against
+Keegark, when that starts; be sure you get the best-armed and
+best-trained regiments he has, and get them down here as soon as
+possible. Don't send any of your Kragans or Karamessinis' troops here,
+though; hold them in Grank till we make sure of the quality of
+Yoorkerk's friendship."
+
+"Well, general, I think we can be pretty sure, now. You see, he turned
+Rakkeed the Prophet over to me...."
+
+"_What_?" Von Schlichten felt his monocle starting to slip and took a
+firmer 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 in
+case we lost; he was also holding Rakkeed at the Palace in case we
+won. Of course, Rakkeed thought he was an honored guest, right up till
+Yoorkerk's guards dragged him in and turned him over to us...."
+
+"That geek," von Schlichten said, "is too smart for his own good. Some
+of these days he's going to play both ends against the middle and both
+ends'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 to
+sell us a ringer."
+
+O'Leary shook his head solemnly. "I thought of that, right away. This
+is the real article; Karamessinis' Constabulary and Intelligence
+officers certified him for me. What do you want me to do, send him
+down to Konkrook?"
+
+Von Schlichten shook his head. "Get the priests of the locally
+venerated gods to put him on trial for blasphemy, heresy,
+impersonating a prophet, practicing witchcraft without a license, or
+any other ecclesiastical crimes you or they can think of. Then, after
+he's been given a scrupulously fair trial, have the soldiers of King
+Yoorkerk behead him, and stick his head up over a big sign, in all
+native languages, 'Rakkeed the False Prophet.' And have audio-visuals
+made of the whole business, trial and execution, and be sure that the
+priests and Yoorkerk's officers are in the foreground and our people
+stay out of the pictures."
+
+"Soap and towels, for General Pontius von Pilate!" Paula Quinton
+called out.
+
+"That's an idea; I was wondering what to give Yoorkerk as a
+testimonial present," Hideyoshi O'Leary said. "A nice thirty-piece
+silver set!"
+
+"Quite appropriate," von Schlichten approved. "Well, you did a first-class
+job. I want you back with us as soon as possible--incidentally, you're now
+a brigadier-general--but not till the situation at Grank-Krink-Skilk is
+stabilized. And, eventually, you'll probably have to set up permanent
+headquarters in the north."
+
+After Hideyoshi O'Leary had thanked him and signed off, and the screen
+was dark again, he turned to the others.
+
+"Well, gentlemen, I don't think we need worry too much about the
+north, for the next few days. How long do you estimate this operation
+against Konkrook's going to take, to complete pacification, Them?"
+
+"How complete is complete pacification, general?" Themistocles
+M'zangwe wanted to know. "If you mean to the end of organized
+resistance by larger than squad-size groups, I'd say three days, give
+or take twelve hours. Of course, there'll be small groups holding out
+for a couple of weeks, particularly in the farming country and back in
+the forest...."
+
+"We can forget them; that's minor-tactics stuff. We'll need to keep
+some kind of an occupation force here for some time; they can deal
+with 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 a
+campaign against the Free Cities on the Eastern Shore."
+
+"Begging your pardon, general, but reduce is a mild word for what we
+ought to do to Keegark," Hans Meyerstein said. "We ought to raze that
+city as flat as a football field, and then play football on it with
+King Orgzild's head."
+
+"Any special reason?" von Schlichten asked. "In addition to the
+Blount-Lemoyne massacre, that is?"
+
+"I should say so, general!" Themistocles M'zangwe backed Meyerstein
+up. "Bob, you tell him."
+
+Colonel Robert Grinell, the Intelligence officer, got up and took the
+cigar 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 genesis
+of this business, lately," he said. "From up north, it probably looked
+like an all-Rakkeed show; that's how it was supposed to look. But the
+whole thing was hatched at Keegark, by King Orgzild. We've managed to
+capture a few prominent Konkrookans"--he named half a dozen--"who've
+been made to talk, and a number of others have come in voluntarily and
+furnished information. Orgzild conceived the scheme in the beginning;
+Rakkeed was just the messenger-boy. My face gets the color of the
+Company trademark every time I think that the whole thing was planned
+for over a year, right under our noses, even to the signal that was to
+touch 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 went
+on to elaborate, while von Schlichten tried to keep the impatience out
+of his face. Beside him, Paula Quinton was fidgeting, too; she was
+thinking, as he was, of what King Orgzild and Prince Gorkrink were
+doing now. "And I know positively that the order for the poisoning of
+Sid Harrington came from the Keegarkan Embassy here, and was passed
+down through Gurgurk and Keeluk to this geek here who actually put the
+poison in the whiskey."
+
+"Yes. I agree that Keegark should be wiped out, and I'd like to have
+an immediate estimate on the time it'll take to build a nuclear bomb
+to do the job. One of the old-fashioned plutonium fission A-bombs will
+do quite well."
+
+Everybody turned quickly. There was a momentary silence, and then
+Colonel Evan Colbert, of the Fourth Kragan Rifles, the senior officer
+under Themistocles M'zangwe, found his voice.
+
+"If that's an order, general, we'll get it done. But I'd like to
+remind you, first, of the Company policy on nuclear weapons on this
+planet."
+
+"I'm aware of that policy. I'm also aware of the reason for it. We've
+been compelled, because of the lack of natural fuel on Uller, to set
+up nuclear power reactors and furnish large quantities of plutonium to
+the geeks to fuel them. The Company doesn't want the natives here
+learning of the possibility of using nuclear energy for destructive
+purposes. Well, gentlemen, that's a dead issue. They've learned it,
+thanks to our people on Niflheim, and unless my estimate is entirely
+wrong, King Orgzild already has at least one First-Century
+Nagasaki-type plutonium bomb. I am inclined to believe that he had at
+least one such bomb, probably more, at the time when orders were sent
+to his embassy here, for the poisoning of Governor-General
+Harrington."
+
+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 his
+own, when the others finally realized what he had told them.
+
+"That's impossible!" somebody down the table shouted, as though that
+would make it so. Another--one of the civil administration
+crowd--almost exactly repeated Jules Keaveney's words at Skilk: "What
+the hell was Intelligence doing, sleeping?"
+
+"General von Schlichten," Colonel Grinell took oblique cognizance of
+the question, "you've just made, by implication, a most grave charge
+against my department. If you're not mistaken in what you've just
+said, I deserve to be court-martialed."
+
+"I couldn't bring charges against you, colonel; if it were a
+court-martial matter, I'd belong in the dock with you," von Schlichten
+told him. "It seems, though, that a piece of vital information was
+possessed by those who were unable to evaluate it, and until this
+afternoon, I was ignorant of its existence. Colonel Quinton, suppose
+you 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, and
+it'll be he who'll have to build ours."
+
+"That's right." He looked around. "Where's Dr. Lourenco Gomes, the
+nuclear engineer who came in on the _Pretoria_, two weeks ago? Send
+out for him, and get him in here at once."
+
+There was another awkward silence. Then Kent Pickering, the chief of
+the Gongonk Island power-plant, cleared his throat.
+
+"Why, general, didn't you know? Dr. Gomes is dead. He was killed
+during 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 the
+monocle to keep from flinching physically as well, trying to freeze
+out of his face the consternation he felt.
+
+"That's bad, Kent," he said. "Very bad. I'd been counting heavily on
+Dr. Gomes to design a bomb of our own."
+
+"Well, general, if you please." That was Air-Commodore Leslie
+Hargreaves. "You say you suspect that King Orgzild has developed a
+nuclear bomb. If that's true, it's a horrible danger to all of us. But
+I find it hard to believe that the Keegarkans could have done so, with
+their resources and at their technological level. Now, if it had been
+the Kragans, that would have been different, but...."
+
+"Paula, you'd better carry on and explain what you told me, and add
+anything else you can think of that might be relevant.... Is that
+sound-recorder turned on? Then turn it on, somebody; we want this
+taped."
+
+Paula rose and began talking: "I suppose you all understand what
+conditions are on Niflheim, and how these Ulleran native workers are
+employed; however, I'd better begin by explaining the purpose for
+which these nuclear bombs were designed and used...."
+
+He smiled; she realized that he needed time to think, and she was
+stalling to provide it. He drew a pencil and pad toward him and began
+doodling in a bored manner, deliberately closing his mind to what she
+was saying. There were two assumptions, he considered: first, that
+King Orgzild already possessed a nuclear bomb which he could use when
+he chose, and, second, that in the absence of Dr. Gomes, such a bomb
+could only be produced on Gongonk Island after lengthy experimental
+work. If both of these assumptions were true, he had just heard the
+death-sentence of every Terran on Uller. The first he did not for a
+moment doubt. The reasons for making it were too good. He dismissed it
+from further consideration and concentrated on the second.
+
+"... what's known as a Nagasaki-type bomb, the first type of
+plutonium-bomb developed," Paula was saying. "Really, it's a
+technological 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 military
+standpoint, was as obsolete as the flintlock musket had been at the
+time of the Second World War. He reviewed, quickly, the history of
+weapons-development since the beginning of the Atomic Era. The
+emphasis, since the end of the Second World War, had all been on
+nuclear weapons and rocket-missiles. There had been the H-bomb, itself
+obsolescent, and the Bethe-cyle bomb, and the subneutron bomb, and the
+omega-ray bomb, and the nega-matter bomb, and then the end of
+civilization in the Northern Hemisphere and the rise of the new
+civilization in South America and South Africa and Australia. Today,
+the small-arms and artillery his troops were using were merely slight
+refinements on the weapons of the First Century, and all the modern
+nuclear weapons used by the Terran Federation were produced at the
+Space Navy base on Mars, by a small force of experts whose skills were
+almost as closed to the general scientific and technical world as the
+secrets of a medieval guild. The old A-bomb was an historical
+curiosity, and there was nobody on Uller who had more than a layman's
+knowledge of the intricate technology of modern nuclear weapons. There
+were plenty of good nuclear-power engineers on Gongonk Island, but how
+long 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 General
+von Schlichten and King Kankad talking to one another. I haven't any
+idea whether or not Gorkrink could read Lingua Terra, or, if so, what
+papers or plans he might have seen."
+
+"Just a minute, Paula," he said. "Colonel Grinell, what does your
+branch 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 the
+story we got was that he'd fallen out of favor at court and had been
+exiled. I can see, now, that that was planted to mislead us. As to
+whether or not he can read Lingua Terra, my belief is that he can. We
+know that he can understand it when spoken. He could have learned to
+read at one of those schools Mohammed Ferriera set up, ten or fifteen
+years ago."
+
+"And Dr. Gomes and Dr. Murillo and Dr. Livesey left papers and plans
+lying around all over the place," Paula added. "If he went to Niflheim
+as a spy, he could have copied almost anything."
+
+"Well, there you have it," von Schlichten said. "When Gorkrink found
+out that plutonium can be used for bombs, he began gathering all the
+information he could. And as soon as he got home, he turned it all
+over to Pappy Orgzild."
+
+"That still doesn't mean that the Kee-geeks were able to do anything
+with it," Air-Commodore Hargreaves argued.
+
+"I think it does," von Schlichten differed. "As soon as Orgzild would
+hear about the possibility of making a plutonium bomb, he'd set up an
+A-bomb project, and don't think of it in terms of the old First
+Century Manhattan Project. There would be no problem of producing
+fissionables--we've been scattering refined plutonium over this planet
+like confetti."
+
+"Well, an A-bomb's a pretty complicated piece of mechanism, even if
+you have the plans for it," Kent Pickering said. "As I recall, there
+have to be several subcritical masses of plutonium, or U-235, or
+whatever, blown together by shaped charges of explosive, all of which
+have to be fired simultaneously. That would mean a lot of electrical
+fittings that I can't see these geeks making by hand."
+
+"I can," Paula said. "Have you ever seen the work these native
+jewelers do? And didn't you tell me about a clockwork thing they have
+at 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 electrical
+equipment."
+
+"All right, they could have built an A-bomb," Buhrmann said. "But did
+they?"
+
+"We assume they tried to. Gorkrink got back from Nif on the Canberra,
+three months ago," von Schlichten said. "If Orgzild decided to build
+an A-bomb, he wouldn't give the signal for this uprising until he
+either had one or knew he couldn't make one, and he wouldn't give up
+trying in only three months. Therefore, I think we can assume that he
+succeeded, and had succeeded at the time he sent Gorkrink here to get
+that four tons of plutonium we let him have, and, incidentally, to
+tell Ghroghrank to pass the word to have Sid Harrington poisoned
+according 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's
+plan," Grinell said. "Back as far as geek history goes, the Kings of
+Keegark have been trying to conquer Konkrook and the Free Cities and
+make themselves masters of the whole Takkad Sea area. Let Konkrook
+wipe 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 us
+out and then move in on Konkrook. I think that as long as we're
+fighting here, he'll wait. The more damage we do to Konkrook, the
+easier 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 of
+Konkrook was being projected from an overhead pickup.
+
+"I'll agree on the second half of it," von Schlichten said. "And we'll
+also have to set up some kind of security-patrol system against
+bombers from Keegark. And as soon as _Procyon_ gets here, we'll have
+to send her out to hunt down and destroy those two Boer-class
+freighters, the _Jan Smuts_ and the _Kruger_. And we'll have to
+arrange for protection of Kankad's Town; that's sure to be another of
+Orgzild'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 for
+any length of time?"
+
+M'zangwe shook his head. "When we divert contragravity to
+security-patrol work, the ground action'll slow up a little, of
+course. But the geeks are about knocked out, now."
+
+"The hell with it, then. I doubt if we'd be able to buy much time from
+Orgzild by delaying victory in the city, and we'll probably need the
+troops 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 Piet
+van Reenen, and...." He nodded to himself. "I can get six or eight of
+them in here in about twenty minutes; I'll have a project set up and
+working in a couple of hours. There has to be somebody qualified on
+duty at the plant, all the time, of course, but...."
+
+"All right, call them in. I want the bomb finished by yesterday
+afternoon. And everybody with you, and you, yourself, had better
+revert to civilian status. This isn't something you can do by the
+numbers, and I don't want anybody who doesn't know what it's all about
+pulling rank on your outfit. Go ahead, call in your gang, and let me
+know what you'll be able to do, as soon as possible."
+
+He turned to Hargreaves. "Les, you'll have charge of flying the
+security patrols, and doing anything else you can to keep Orgzild from
+bombing us before we can bomb him. You'll have priority on everything
+second only to Pickering."
+
+Hargreaves nodded. "As you say, general, we'll have to protect
+Kankad's, as well as this place. It's about five hundred miles from
+here 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-load
+capacities of airboats, and distances. In about five minutes, he would
+have a programme worked out; in the meantime, von Schlichten could
+only be patient and contain himself. He looked along the table, and
+caught sight of a thin-faced, saturnine-looking man in a green shirt,
+with a colonel's three concentric circles marked on the shoulders in
+silver-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 of
+a crew could be put on one of them?"
+
+Pearson laughed. "Crew of what, general? White mice, or trained
+cockroaches? There isn't room inside one of those things for anything
+bigger 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 in
+length, with a fifteen-foot ball at either end, and everything's in
+sections, which can be taken out. Our maintenance-gang goes up in a
+thing like a small spaceship, and either works on the outside in
+spacesuits, or puts in a new section and brings the unserviceable one
+down 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, and
+connected at the middle; airtight, of course, and pressurized and
+insulated like a spaceship. One side's living quarters for a six-man
+crew--sometimes the gang's out for as long as a week at a time--and
+the other side's a workshop."
+
+That sounded interesting. With contragravity, of course, terms like
+"escape-velocity" and "mass-ratio" were of purely antiquarian
+interest.
+
+"How long," he asked Pearson, "would it take to fit that vehicle with
+a full set of detection instruments--radar, infrared and ultra-violet
+vision, electron-telescope, heat and radiation detectors, the whole
+works--and spot it about a hundred to a hundred and fifty miles above
+Keegark?"
+
+"That I couldn't say, general," Emmett Pearson replied. "It'd have to
+be a shipyard job, and a lot of that stuff's clear outside my
+department. 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 service
+those orbital telecast-relay stations of his. He'll tell you what it's
+like. I want it fitted with every sort of detection device that can be
+crammed into or onto it, and spotted above Keegark. It should, of
+course, be high enough to cover not only the Keegark area, but
+Konkrook, Kankad's, and the lower Hoork and Konk river-valleys."
+
+"Yes, I get it." Hargreaves snatched up a phone, punched out a
+combination, and began talking rapidly into it in a low voice. After a
+while, he hung up. "All right, Mr. Pearson--Colonel Pearson, I mean.
+Have your space-buggy sent around to the shipyard. My boys'll fix it
+up." He made a note on another piece of paper. "If we live through
+this, I'm going to have a couple of supra-atmosphere ships in service
+on this planet.... Now, general, I have a tentative setup. We're
+going to need the _Elmoran_ for patrol work south and east of
+Konkrook, and the _Gaucho_ and _Bushranger_ to the north and
+northeast, based on Kankad's. We'll keep the _Aldebaran_ at Kankad's,
+and use her for emergencies. And we'll have patrols of light
+contragravity like this." He handed a map, with red-pencil and
+blue-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 with
+radiation-detectors. These geeks are quite well aware of
+radiation-danger from fissionables, but they're accustomed to the
+ordinary industrial-power reactors, which are either very lightly
+shielded or unshielded on top. We want to find out where Orgzild's
+bomb-plant is."
+
+"Yes, general, as soon as we can get radiation detectors sent out to
+Kankad's, we'll have a couple of fast aircars fitted with them for
+that job."
+
+"We have detectors, at our laboratory and reaction-plant," Kankad
+said. "And my people can make more, as soon as you want them." He
+thought for a moment. "Perhaps I should go to the town, now. I could
+be of more use there than here."
+
+Kent Pickering, who had been talking with his experts at a table
+apart, returned.
+
+"We've set up a programme, general," he said. "It's going to be a lot
+harder than I'd anticipated. None of us seem to know exactly what we
+have to do in building one of those things. You see, the uranium or
+plutonium fission-bomb's been obsolete for over four hundred years. It
+was a classified-secret matter long after its obsolescence, because it
+hadn't been rendered any the less deadly by being superseded--there
+was that A-bomb that the Christian Anarchist Party put together at
+Buenos Aires in 378 A.E., for instance. And then, after it was
+declassified, it had been so far superseded that it was of only
+antiquarian interest; the textbooks dealt with it only in general
+terms. The principles, of course, are part of basic nuclear science;
+the "secret of the A-bomb" was just a bag of engineering tricks that
+we don't have, and which we will have to rediscover. Design of
+tampers, design of the chemical-explosive charges to bring subcritical
+masses together, case-design, detonating mechanism, things like that."
+
+"The complete data on even the old Hiroshima and Nagasaki types is
+still in existence, of course. You can get it at places like the
+University of Montevideo Library, or Jan Smuts Memorial Library at
+Cape Town. But we don't have it here. We're detailing a couple of
+junior technicians to make a search of the library here on Gongonk
+Island, but we're not optimistic. We just can't afford to pass up any
+chance, even when it approaches zero-probability."
+
+Von Schlichten nodded. "That's about what I'd expected," he said. "I
+suppose Gomes got his data out of one of the dustier storage-stacks at
+Jan Smuts or Montevideo, in the first place.... Well, I still want
+that bomb finished by yesterday afternoon, but since that's
+impractical, you'll have to take a little--but as little as
+possible--longer."
+
+"What are we going to do about publicity on this?" Howlett, the
+personnel man, asked. "We don't want this getting out in garbled
+form--though how it could be made worse by garbling I couldn't
+guess--and having the troops watching the sky over their shoulders and
+going into a panic as soon as they saw something they didn't
+understand."
+
+"No, we don't. I've seen a couple of troop-panics," von Schlichten
+said. "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 and
+dropped first. As to the Kragans.... What do you think, King Kankad?"
+
+"Tell them that we are building a bomb to destroy Keegark; that we are
+running short of ammunition, and that it is our only hope of finishing
+the war before the ammunition is gone," Kankad said. "Tell them
+something of what sort of a bomb it is. But do not tell them that King
+Orgzild already has such a bomb. Old Kankad, who made me out of
+himself, told me about how our people fled in panic from the weapons
+of the Terrans, when your people and mine were still enemies. This
+thing is to the weapons they faced then as those weapons were to the
+old Kragans' spears and bows.... And when the geeks from Grank come
+here, tell them that we are winning and that if they fight well, they
+can share the loot of Konkrook and Keegark."
+
+Von Schlichten looked up at the big screen. Already, Themistocles
+M'zangwe had ordered the Channel Battery to reduce fire; the big guns
+were firing singly, in thirty-second-interval salvos. There was less
+bombing, too; contragravity was being drawn out of the battle.
+
+"Well, we all have things to do," he said, "and I think we've
+discussed everything there is to discuss. Anybody think of anything
+we've forgotten?... Then we're adjourned."
+
+He and Paula Quinton took the elevator to the roof, and sat side by
+side, silently watching the conflagration that was raging across the
+channel and the nearer flashes of the big guns along the island's
+city 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 a
+magician," he said. "Pickering'll be a magician, I mean; he's the boy
+who'll save our bacon, if it's saveable." He looked somberly across
+the flame-reflecting water. "Let's not kid ourselves; we're just
+kicking 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 to
+these people on this planet, after we're atomized?"
+
+"That I don't want to think about. Kankad's Town will get the second
+bomb; Orgzild won't dare leave the Kragans after he's wiped us out.
+Yoorkerk and Jonkvank, in the north, will turn on Keaveney and Shapiro
+and Karamessinis and Hid O'Leary and wipe them out. And when the next
+ship gets in here and they find out what happened, they'll send the
+Federation Space Navy, and this planet'll get it worse than Fenris
+did. They'll blast anything that has four arms and a face like a
+lizard...."
+
+Half a dozen aircars lifted suddenly from the airport and streaked
+away to the northeast. As they went past, in the light of the burning
+city, he could see that at least three of them had multiple
+rocket-launchers on top. In a matter of seconds, a gun-cutter raced
+after them, and a second, which had been over Konkrook, jettisoned a
+bomb 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 lights
+showed over the East Konk Mountains. They weren't the flashes of
+explosions; some were magnesium flares, and some were the lights of a
+ship.
+
+"That's _Procyon_, from Grank," he said. "Everybody gets a good mark
+for this--detection stations, interceptors, gun-cutters. If that had
+been it, there'd have been a good chance of stopping it." He felt
+better than he had since Pickering had told him that Lourenco Gomes
+was dead. "It's a good thing Gorkrink didn't pick up any dope on
+guided missiles, while he was at it. As long as they have to deliver
+it with contragravity, we have a chance."
+
+They rose from the balustrade where they had been sitting, and, for
+the first time, he discovered that he had had his left arm over her
+shoulder and that she had had her right hand resting on the point of
+his right hip, just above his pistol. He picked up the folder of
+papers she had been carrying, and put her into the elevator ahead of
+him, and it was only when they parted on the living-quarters level
+that he recalled having followed the older protocol of gallantry
+rather 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 to
+the floor and sprinted for the bathroom. While he was fussing to get
+the shower adjusted to the right temperature, he bludgeoned his
+conscience by telling himself that a wide-awake general is more good
+than a half-asleep general, that there was nothing he could do but
+hope that Hargreaves's patrols would keep the bomb away from Konkrook
+until Pickering's brain-trust came up with one of their own, and that
+the fact that the commander-in-chief was making sack-time would be
+much better for morale than the spectacle of him running around in
+circles. He shaved carefully; a stubble of beard on his chin might
+betray the fact that he was worried. Then he dressed, put his monocle
+in his eye, and called the headquarters that had been set up in Sid
+Harrington's--now his--office. A girl at the switchboard appeared on
+his screen, and gave place to Paula Quinton, who had been up for the
+past two hours.
+
+"The _Northern Lights_ got in about three hours ago, general," she
+told him. "She had four of King Yoorkerk's infantry regiments
+aboard--the Seventh, Glorious-and-Terrible, the Fourth,
+Firm-in-Adversity, the Second, Strength-of-the-Throne, and the
+Twelfth, Forever-Admirable. They're the sorriest-looking rabble I
+ever saw, but Hideyoshi says they're the best Yoorkerk has, and they
+all have Terran-style rifles. General M'zangwe broke them into
+battalions, and put a battalion in with each of the Kragan regiments.
+I think they're more afraid of the Kragans than they are of the
+rebels."
+
+He nodded. That was probably the best way to employ them, within the
+existing situation. The trouble was, Them M'zangwe was incurably
+tactical-minded. Put those geeks of Yoorkerk's in with the Kragans and
+they'd be most useful in conquering Konkrook, but the trouble was
+that, after associating with Kragans, they might develop into
+reasonably good troops themselves, to the undesired improvement of
+King Yoorkerk's army. On the other hand maybe not. Keep them in
+Company service long enough, and they might want to forget about
+Yoorkerk and stay there.
+
+"How's the situation over in town?" he asked.
+
+"Well, it's slowing up, since we began pulling contragravity out," she
+told him, "but the geeks are breaking up rapidly.... Oh, there was
+something funny about that hassle, last evening, when the _Procyon_
+came in. Two contragravity vehicles, an aircar and an air-lorry, that
+went 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 the
+vehicles that answered that unidentified-aircraft alert returned, but
+there 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 were
+probably geeks from Konkrook. You know, that's how the von Schlichten
+family got out of Germany, in the Year Three--flew a bomber to Spain.
+The Konkrook war-criminals are getting out before the Army of
+Occupation 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 from
+Konkrook agree that resistance is getting weaker every hour.... And
+the supra-atmosphere observation-craft--they're beginning to call her
+the _Sky-Spy_--is up a hundred and fifty miles over Keegark. We have
+radar and vision screens and telemetered radiation and other detectors
+here, tuned to her. They're installing a similar set on the _Northern
+Lights_ at the shipyard. By the way, Air-Commodore Hargreaves wants to
+know if he can take a pair of 155-mm rifles from the Channel Battery
+and mount them on the _Lights_."
+
+"Yes, of course, he can have anything he wants, as long as it isn't
+urgently needed for the bomb project."
+
+"_Sky-Spy_ reports normal contragravity traffic between Keegark and
+the farming-villages around--aircars, lorries, a few scows--but
+nothing 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 pretty
+frustrated. They have Major Thornton, at the ammunition plant, doing
+experimental work on chemical-explosive charges to bring the
+subcritical masses together and hold them together till an explosion
+can be produced; they're using most of the skilled electrical and
+electronics people to work up a detonating device. That's why Kankad's
+people are doing most of the detection-device work. Hargreaves is
+fitting a lot of small craft-- combat-cars and civilian aircars--with
+radar sets, to use for patrolling."
+
+"That sounds good," von Schlichten said. "I'll be around and see how
+things are, after I've had some breakfast."
+
+He had breakfast at the main cafeteria, four floors down; there wasn't
+as much laughing and talking as usual, but the crowd there seemed in
+good spirits. He spent some time at headquarters, watching Keegark by
+TV and radar. So far, nothing had been done about direct
+reconnaissance over Keegark with radiation-detectors, but Hargreaves
+reported that a couple of privately owned aircars were being fitted
+for the job.
+
+He made a flying inspection trip around the island, and visited the
+farms south of the city, on the mainland, and, finally, made a sweep
+in the command-car over the city itself. Reconnaissance in person was
+an archaic and unprogressive procedure, and it was a good way to get
+generals killed, but one could see a lot of things that would be
+missed on TV. He let down several times in areas that had already been
+taken, and talked to company and platoon officers. For one thing, King
+Yoorkerk's flamboyantly named regiments weren't quite as bad as Paula
+had thought. She'd been spoiled by the Kragans in her appreciation of
+other native troops. They had good, standard-quality, Volund-made
+arms; they were brave and capable; and they had been just enough
+insulted by being integrated into Kragan regiments to try to make a
+good showing.
+
+By noon, resistance in the city was beginning to cave in. Surrender
+flags were appearing on one after another of the Konkrookan rebel
+strong-points, and at 1430, after he had returned to the Island, a
+delegation, headed by the Konkrookan equivalent of Lord Mayor and
+composed largely of prominent merchants, came across the channel under
+a flag of truce to surrender the city's Spear of State, with abject
+apologies for not having Gurgurk's head on the point of it. Gurgurk,
+they reported, had fled to Keegark by air the night before, which
+explained the incident of the unaccountable aircar and lorry. The
+Channel Battery stopped firing, and, with the exception of an
+occasional spatter of small-arms fire, the city fell silent.
+
+At 1600, von Schlichten visited the headquarters Pickering had set up
+in the office building at the power-plant. As he stepped off the lift
+on the third floor, a girl, running down the hall with her arms full
+of papers in folders, collided with him; the load of papers flew in
+all directions. He stooped to help her pick them up.
+
+"Oh, general! Isn't it wonderful?" she cried. "I just can't believe
+it!"
+
+"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 and
+gave them to her. "When?"
+
+"Just half an hour ago. And to think, those books were around here all
+the time, and.... Oh, I've got to run!" She disappeared into the lift.
+
+Inside the office, one of Pickering's engineers was sitting on the
+middle of his spinal column, a stenograph-phone in one hand and a book
+in the other. Once in a while, he would say something into the
+mouthpiece of the phone. Two other nuclear engineers had similar books
+spread out on a desk in front of them; they were making notes and
+looking up references in the _Nuclear Engineers' Handbook_, and making
+calculations with their sliderules. There was a huddle around the
+drafting-boards, where two more such books were in use.
+
+"Well, what's happened?" he demanded, catching Pickering by the arm as
+he 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 von
+Schlichten, and von Schlichten suddenly felt sicker than he had ever
+felt since, at the age of fourteen, he had gotten drunk for the first
+time. He had seen men crack up under intolerable strain before, but
+this was the first time he had seen a whole roomful of men blow their
+tops in the same manner.
+
+The book was a novel--a jumbo-size historical novel, of some seven or eight
+hundred pages. Its dust-jacket bore a slightly-more-than-bust-length
+picture of a young lady with crimson hair and green eyes and jade earrings
+and a plunging--not to say power-diving--neckline that left her affiliation
+with the class of Mammalia in no doubt whatever. In the background, a
+mushroom-topped smoke-column rose, and away from it something intended to
+be a four-motor propeller-driven bomber of the First Century was racing
+madly. The title, he saw, was _Dire Dawn_, and the author was one
+Hildegarde 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. Case
+specifications, tampers, charge design, detonating device, everything.
+Why, the end-papers even have diagrams, copies of the original
+Nagasaki-bomb drawings. Look."
+
+Von Schlichten looked. He had no more than the average intelligent
+layman's knowledge of nuclear physics--enough to recharge or repair a
+conversion-unit--but the drawings looked authentic enough. They seemed
+to 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 to
+him. "And this!" He opened where another slip of paper had been
+inserted. "Everything we want to know, practically."
+
+"I don't get this." He wasn't sick, anymore, just bewildered. "I read
+some reviews of this thing. All the reviewers panned hell out of
+it--'World War II Through a Bedroom Keyhole'; 'Henty in Black Lace
+Panties'--that sort of thing."
+
+"Yeh, yeh, sure," Pickering agreed. "But this Hernandez had illusions
+of being a great serious historical novelist, see. She won't try to
+write a book till she's put in years of research--actually, about six
+months' research by a herd of librarians and college-juniors and other
+such literary coolies--and she boasts that she never yet has been
+caught in an error of historical background detail.
+
+"Well, this opus is about the old Manhattan Project. The heroine is a
+sort of super-Mata-Hari, who is, alternately and sometimes
+simultaneously, in the pay of the Nazis, the Soviets, the Vatican,
+Chiang Kai-Shek, the Japanese Emperor, and the Jewish International
+Bankers, and she sleeps with everybody but Joe Stalin and Mao
+Tse-tung, and of course, she is in on every step of the A-bomb
+project. She even manages to stow away on the _Enola Gay_, with the
+help of a general she's spent fifty incandescent pages seducing.
+
+"In order to tool up for this production-job, La Hernandez did her
+researching just where Lourenco Gomes probably did his--University of
+Montevideo Library. She even had access to the photostats of the old
+U.S. data that General Lanningham brought to South America after the
+debacle in the United States in A.E. 114. Those end-papers are part of
+the Lanningham stuff. As far as we've been able to check
+mathematically, everything is strictly authentic and practical. We'll
+have to run a few more tests on the chemical-explosive charges--we
+don't have any data on the exact strength of the explosives they used
+then--and the tampers and detonating device will need to be tested a
+little. But in about half an hour, we ought to be able to start
+drawing plans for the case, and as soon as they're finished, we'll
+rush 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. "We
+will erect, on the ruins of Keegark, a hundred-foot statue of Senorita
+Hildegarde Hernandez.... How did you get onto this?"
+
+Pickering pointed to a young man with dull brick colored hair, who was
+punching out some kind of a problem on a small computing machine.
+
+"Piet van Reenen, over there, he has a girl-friend whose taste runs to
+this sort of literary bubble-gum. She told him it was all in a book
+she'd just read, and showed him. We descended in force on the bookshop
+and grabbed every copy in stock. We are now running a sort of
+gaseous-diffusion process, to separate the nuclear physics from the
+pornography. I must say, Hildegarde has her biological data very well
+in hand, too."
+
+"I'll bet she'd have fun writing a novel about these geeks," von
+Schlichten said. "Well, how soon do you think you can have a bomb
+ready 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 the
+most. 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 least
+half a dozen. And have some practice-bombs made up, out of concrete or
+anything, as long as they're the right weight and airfoil and have
+some way of releasing smoke. Get them done as soon as you have your
+case designed. We want to be able to make a couple of practice drops."
+
+There was no use, he thought, of raising hopes which might prove
+premature. He told Paula Quinton, of course, and Themistocles
+M'zangwe, and, by telecast on sealed beam, King Kankad and
+Air-Commodore Hargreaves. Beyond that, there was nothing to do but
+wait, and hope that Hargreaves could keep Orgzild's bombers away from
+Gongonk Island and Kankad's Town and that Hildegarde Hernandez had
+been playing fair with her public. He visited the city, where a few
+pockets of diehard resistance were being liquidated, and where
+everybody who had not been too deeply and publicly involved in the
+_znidd suddabit_ conspiracy was now coming forward and claiming to
+have been a lifelong friend of the Terrans and the Company. Von
+Schlichten returned to Gongonk Island, debating with himself whether
+to declare a general amnesty or to set up a dozen guillotines in the
+city and run them around the clock for a week. There were cogent
+arguments for and against either procedure.
+
+By 2100, the last organized resistance had been wiped out, and curfew
+had been imposed, and peace of a sort restored. There was still the
+threat from Keegark, but it was looking less ominous now than it had
+the evening before. Von Schlichten and Paula were having dinner in the
+Broadway Room, confident that there was nothing left to do that they
+could do anything about, when the extension phone that had been
+plugged in at their table rang.
+
+"Colonel Quinton here," Paula identified herself into it, and listened
+for a moment. "There has? When?... Well, where did it come from?... I
+see. And the direction?... Anything else?"
+
+Apparently there was nothing else. She hung up, and turned to von
+Schlichten.
+
+"The _Sky-Spy_ just detected a ship lifting out from Keegark, presumed
+one of the Boer-class freighters, either the _Jan Smuts_ or the _Oom
+Paul Kruger_. It was first picked up on contragravity at about a
+hundred feet, rising vertically from near the Palace. The supposition
+is the geeks had her camouflaged since the time Commander Prinsloo
+first bombarded Keegark with the _Aldebaran_. That was about twenty
+minutes 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 draw
+our ships north after her, and leave the approach to Konkrook or
+Kankad'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 can
+slip down the Konk Valley either undetected or mistaken for one of our
+ships from North Uller."
+
+He picked up the phone. "Get me through on telecast to Air-Commodore
+Hargreaves, aboard the _Procyon_," he said. "I'll take it in the
+office; I'll be up directly." He rose. "Finish your dinner, and have
+the rest of mine sent up," he told Paula.
+
+Leaving the elevator, he rushed into the big headquarters room just as
+contact was established with the _Procyon_, on station over the
+northwestern 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, had
+just arrived at Kankad's. He had the _Aldebaran_ sent north along the
+crest of the mountain-range between the Hoork and Konk river-valleys,
+where she could cover both with her own radar and other
+detection-devices and exchange information with the _Sky-Spy_, and the
+_Gaucho_ sent in what looked like the right course to intercept the
+Boer-class freighter from Keegark. The _Northern Lights_, also with
+screens 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 finished
+calling Skilk, pushing a cocktail-wagon on which their interrupted
+dinners had been placed. They finished eating, and drank coffee, and
+smoked. Most of the rest of his staff who were not busy on the
+bomb-project or at the shipyards or with the occupation of Konkrook
+drifted in; they all sat and stared from one to another of the
+screens, which told, in radar-patterns and direct vision and
+telescopic vision and heat and radiation detection, the story of what
+was going on to the northeast of them.
+
+Keegark was dark, on the vision-screen; evidently King Orgzild had invented
+the blackout, too. Not that it did him any good; the radar-screen showed
+the city clearly, and it was just as clear on the radiation and
+heat-screens. The Keegarkan ship was completely blacked out, but the
+radiations from her engines and the distinctive radiation-pattern of her
+contragravity-field showed clearly, and there was a speck that marked her
+position on the radar-screen. The same position was marked with a pin-point
+of light on the vision-screen--some device on the _Sky-Spy_, synchronized
+with the detectors, kept it focused there. The Company ships and
+contragravity vehicles all were carrying topside lights, visible only from
+above, which flashed alternate red and blue to identify them.
+
+Time crawled slowly around the clock-face on the wall, the
+sixty-five-second minutes of Uller dragging like hours. The spots that
+marked the enemy ship and her hunters crawled, too; seen from the
+hundred-and-fifty-mile altitude of the _Sky-Spy_, even the
+six-hundred-mile speed of the _Gaucho_ was barely visible. They drank
+coffee till the stuff revolted them; they smoked until their throats
+and mouths were dry, they watched the screens until they thought that
+they would see them in their dreams forever. Then the _Gaucho_
+reported radar-contact with the Keegarkan ship, which had begun to
+turn in a hairpin-shaped course and was coming south down the Konk
+Valley.
+
+After that, the _Gaucho_ began reporting directly, and her topside
+identification-light went out.
+
+"... doused our lights; we're down in the valley, altitude about a
+thousand 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 voice
+repeated, several times, the wavelength, and somebody got an auxiliary
+screen tuned in. There was nothing visible on it but the darkness of
+the valley, the star-jeweled sky, and the loom of the East Konk
+Mountains. "We still can't see her, but we ought to, any moment; radar
+shows her well above the mountains. Ah, there she is; she just
+obscured Beta Hydrae V; she's moving toward that big constellation to
+the east of it, the one they call Finnegan's Goat. Now she'll be right
+in the center of the screen; we're going straight for her. We're going
+to try to slow her down till the _Aldebaran_ can get here...."
+
+The enemy ship was vaguely visible, now, becoming clearer in the
+starlight. 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 since
+the uprising had started. For all anybody knew, she could have been
+destroyed in the fighting before the Bwork Residency fell.
+
+"All right, we have her spotted; we're going to open up on her," the
+voice from the _Gaucho_ announced. "She has two 90's to our one; we'll
+try to disable them, first." The vision-screen lit with the indirect
+glare of the gun-flash, and the image in it jiggled violently as the
+ship shook to the recoil, then steadied again, with the enemy ship
+visible in the middle of it, growing larger and larger as the _Gaucho_
+rushed toward her. The gun fired again and again, flooding the screen
+with momentary yellow light and disturbing the image as the recoil
+shook the gun-cutter. The enemy ship began firing in reply, the shots
+were all wide misses. Apparently the geek guncrew didn't know how to
+synchronize the radar sights, and were ignorant of the correct setting
+for the proximity-fuses. The _Gaucho_'s searchlights came on, bathing
+her quarry in light. It was the _Jan Smuts_; the name and the
+figurehead-bust of the old soldier-philosopher were plainly visible.
+Her forward gun had been knocked out, and she was trying to swing
+about 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 and
+four and four, at half-second intervals. The first four hit the
+_Smuts_ amidships and low, exploding with a flare that grew before it
+could die away as the second four landed. Nobody ever saw the third
+and fourth four land. The _Jan Smuts_ vanished in a blaze of light
+that blinded everybody in the room; when they could see again, after
+some thirty seconds, the screen was dark.
+
+In the direct-vision screen from the _Sky-Spy_, the whole countryside
+of the Konk Valley, five hundred miles north of Konkrook, was lighted.
+The heat and radiation detectors were going insane. And in the
+shifting confusion on the radar-screen, there was no trace either of
+the _Jan Smuts_ or the _Gaucho_.
+
+"Well, the geeks did have an A-bomb," Themistocles M'zangwe said, at
+length. "I'd been trying to kid myself that we were just preparing
+against 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 a
+junior-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 that
+cutter. Authority Carlos von Schlichten, acting Governor-General." He
+picked up a phone. "Get me Commander Prinsloo, on _Aldebaran_...."
+
+He ordered Prinsloo to launch airboats and make a search; cautioned
+him 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. While
+that was going on, the _Sky-Spy_ reported another ship coming over her
+horizon to the east, from the direction of Bwork. That would be the
+_Oom Paul Kruger_. Hargreaves had already learned of the advent of the
+second freighter. He was unwilling to take the _Procyon_ off her
+station until the _Aldebaran_ returned from the Konk Valley. In this,
+von Schlichten concurred.
+
+Somebody suggested that a drink would be in order. They had just
+watched the all-but-certain death of three Terran officers, fifteen
+Terran airmen, and ten Kragans, but they had all been living in too
+close companionship with death in the past three days--or was it three
+centuries--to be too deeply affected. And they had also watched, at
+least for a day or so, the removal of the threat that had hung over
+their heads. And they had seen proof that they had a defense against
+King Orgzild's bombs.
+
+They were still mixing cocktails when Pickering phoned in.
+
+"Some good news, general, from Operation 'Hildegarde.' We ought to
+have at least one bomb ready to drop by 1500 tomorrow, four or five
+more by next midnight," he said. "We don't need to have cases cast. We
+got our dimensions decided, and we find that there are a lot of big
+empty 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 can
+between now and 2400 Sunday." He thought for a moment. "Don't waste
+time on those practice bombs I mentioned. We'll make a practice drop
+with 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 a
+belt of calm air just below the seesawing currents from the warming
+Antarctic and the cooling deserts of the Arctic. There was the
+_Procyon_, from the bridge of which von Schlichten watched the
+movements of the other ships and airboats and the distant horizon. The
+_Aldebaran_ was ten miles off, to the west, her metal sheathing
+glinting in the red light of the evening sun. There was the _Northern
+Star_, down from Skilk, a smaller and more distant twinkle of
+reflected light to the north of _Aldebaran_. The _Northern Lights_ was
+off to the east, and between her and _Procyon_ was a fifth ship;
+turning the arm-mounted binoculars around, he could just make out, on
+her bow, the figurehead bust of a man in an ancient tophat and a
+fringe of chin-beard. She was the _Oom Paul Kruger_, captured by the
+_Procyon_ after a chase across the mountains northeast of Keegark the
+day before. And, remote from the other ships, to the south, a tiny
+speck of blue-gray, almost invisible against the sky, and a smaller
+twinkle of reflected sunlight--a garbage-scow, unflatteringly but
+somewhat aptly rechristened _Hildegarde Hernandez_, which had been
+altered as a bomb-carrier, and the gun-cutter _Elmoran_. With the
+glasses, he could see a bulky cylinder being handled off the scow and
+loaded onto the improvised bomb-catapult on the _Elmoran_'s stern.
+Shortly thereafter, the gun-cutter broke loose from the tender and
+began to approach the fleet.
+
+"General, I must protest against your doing this," Air-Commodore
+Hargreaves said. "There's simply no sense in it. That bomb can be
+dropped without your personal supervision aboard, sir, and you're
+endangering yourself unnecessarily. That infernal machine hasn't been
+tested or anything; it might even let go on the catapult when you try
+to 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 up
+with that contraption?" Buhrmann supported him. "My God, I thought Don
+Quixote was a Spaniard, instead of a German!"
+
+"Argentino," von Schlichten corrected. "And don't try to sell me that
+Irreplaceable Man line, either. Them M'zangwe can replace me, Hid
+O'Leary can replace him, Barney Mordkovitz can replace him, and so on
+down to where you make a second lieutenant out of some sergeant. We've
+been all over this last evening. Admitted we can't take time for a
+long string of test-shots, and admitted we have to use an untested
+weapon; I'm not sending men out under those circumstances and staying
+here on this ship and watch them blow themselves up. If that bomb's
+our only hope, it's got to be dropped right, and I'm not going to take
+a chance on having it dropped by a crew who think they've been sent
+out on a suicide mission. What happened to the _Gaucho_ when she blew
+the _Smuts_ up is too fresh in everybody's mind. But if I, who ordered
+the mission, accompany it, they'll know I have some confidence that
+they'll come back alive."
+
+"Well I'm coming along, too, general," Kent Pickering spoke up. "I
+made the damned thing, and I ought to be along when it's dropped, on
+the principle that a restaurant-proprietor ought to be seen eating his
+own 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 good
+chance that the geeks don't know we have a bomb of our own. They may
+believe that it was something invented on Niflheim for mining
+purposes, and that we haven't realized its military application.
+There's more than a good chance that the loss of the _Jan Smuts_ has
+temporarily demoralized them. Personally, I believe that both King
+Orgzild and Prince Gorkrink were aboard her when she blew up. That's
+something we'll never know, positively, of course. That ship and
+everything and everybody in her were simply vaporized, and the
+particles are registering on our geigers now. But I'm as sure as I am
+of anything about these geeks that one or both of them accompanied
+her."
+
+"Paula knows what she's talking about," King Kankad jabbered in the
+Takkad Sea language which they all understood. "Just like Von saying
+that he has to go on our cutter, to encourage the crew. They always
+insist that their kings and generals go into battle, particularly if
+something important is to be done. They think the gods get angry if
+they don't."
+
+"And we have to hit them now," von Schlichten said. "They still have a
+couple of bombs left. We haven't been able to locate them with
+detectors, 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't
+take a chance that some fanatic may load one into an aircar and make
+a kamikaze-raid on Gongonk Island."
+
+The _Elmoran_ ran alongside, with her Masai-warrior figurehead and the
+black 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 to
+connect the ship with the cutter. Von Schlichten and Kent Pickering
+went down the ladder from the bridge, the others accompanying them. As
+he 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 believe
+there's any danger, but I'm not having you run any unnecessary
+risks...."
+
+"Von, I don't know much about the way Terrans think, except about
+fighting and about making things," Kankad told him. "And I don't know
+anything at all about the kind of Terrans who have young. But I
+believe 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 will
+ever 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 and
+checked the catapult and the bomb-sight, and then went up on the
+bridge.
+
+"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 five
+thousand for a target-check, turning when we're half-way back to the
+mountains, and coming back for our bombing-run at fifteen thousand. Is
+that all right, sir?"
+
+Von Schlichten nodded. "You're the skipper, lieutenant. You'd better
+make sure, though, that as soon as the bomb-off signal is flashed,
+your engineer hits his auxiliary rocket-propulsion button. We want to
+be about fifteen miles from where that thing goes off."
+
+The lieutenant (j.g.) muttered something that sounded unmilitarily
+like, "You ain't foolin', brother!"
+
+"No, I'm not," von Schlichten agreed. "I saw the _Jan Smuts_ on the
+TV-screen."
+
+The _Elmoran_ pointed her bow, and the long blade of the figurehead
+warrior'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 a
+color-splashed triangle between the river and the bay and the hills on
+the landward side, and then it took shape, cross-ruled with streets
+and granulated with buildings. As they came in, von Schlichten, who
+had approached it from the air many times before, could distinguish
+the landmarks--the site of King Orgzild's nitroglycerin plant, now a
+crater surrounded by a quarter-mile radius of ruins; the Residency,
+another crater since Rodolfo MacKinnon had blown it up under him; the
+smashed _Christiaan De Wett_ at the Company docks; King Orgzild's
+Palace, fire-stained and with a hole blown in one corner by the
+_Aldebaran_'s bombs.... Then they were past the city and over open
+country.
+
+"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 anything
+significant when we flew reconnaissance with the radiation detectors."
+
+"No, about all that was picked up was the main power-plant, and the
+radiation-escape from there was normal," Pickering agreed. "The bombs
+themselves wouldn't be detectable, except to the extent that, say, a
+nuclear-conversion engine for an airboat would be. They probably have
+them underground, somewhere, well shielded."
+
+"Those prisoners Kankad's commandos dragged in only knew that they
+were in the city somewhere," von Schlichten considered. "How about
+midway 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 thousand
+feet. Morrison passed the word to the bombardier. The city, with the
+sea beyond it now, came rushing at them, and von Schlichten, standing
+at the front of the bridge, discovered that he had his arm around
+Paula's waist and was holding her a little more closely than was
+military. 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 of
+engineering, and the stuff they got out of that big-economy-size
+shilling-shocker all checked mathematically...."
+
+The red light on the bridge flashed, and the intercom shouted, "_Bomb
+off!_" He forced Paula down on the bridge deck and crouched beside
+her.
+
+"Cover your eyes," he warned. "You remember what the flash was like in
+the screen when the _Jan Smuts_ blew up. And we didn't get the worst
+of it; the pickup on the _Gaucho_ was knocked out too soon."
+
+He kept on lecturing her about gamma-rays and ultra-violet rays and
+X-rays and cosmic rays, trying to keep making some sort of intelligent
+sounds while they clung together and waited, and, with the other half
+of his mind, trying not to think of everything that could go wrong
+with that jerry-built improvisation they had just dumped onto Keegark.
+If it didn't blow, and the geeks found it, they'd know that another
+one 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 palpable
+sound, and a sensation of heat that penetrated even the airtight
+superstructure 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 remaining
+nuclear armament. There were shattering sounds of breaking glass, and
+heavy thumps that told of structural damage to the cutter, and hoarse
+shouts, and lurid cursing as Morrison and his airmen struggled with
+the controls. The cutter began losing altitude, but she was back on a
+reasonably even keel. Von Schlichten rose, helping Paula to her feet,
+and found that they had been kissing one another passionately. They
+were still in each other's arms when the pitching and rolling of the
+cutter 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_. And
+here, you'll want this, I suppose." He held out a glass disc. "I
+never expected to see it, but at that it took three A-bombs to blow
+you 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 kissing
+a lady?"
+
+He looked around. They were at about eight hundred to a thousand feet
+above the water, with a stiff following wind away from the explosion
+area. The 90-mm gun, forward, must have been knocked loose and carried
+away; it was gone, and so was the TV-pickup and the radar. Something,
+probably the gun, had slammed against the front of the bridge--the
+metal skeleton was bent in, and the armor-glass had been knocked out.
+The cutter was vibrating properly, so the contragravity-field had not
+been disturbed, and her jets were firing.
+
+"It was the second and third bombs that did the damage, sir," Morrison
+was saying. "We'd have gone through the effects of our own bomb with
+nothing more than a bad shaking--of course, on contragravity, we're
+weightless relative to the air-mass, but she was built to stand the
+winds in the high latitudes. But the two geek bombs caught us off
+balance...."
+
+"You don't need to apologize, lieutenant. You and your crew behaved
+splendidly, lieutenant-commander, best traditions, and all that sort
+of thing. It was a pleasure, commander, hope to be aboard with you
+again, captain."
+
+They found Kent Pickering at the rear of the bridge, and joined him
+looking astern. Even von Schlichten, who had seen H-bombs and
+Bethe-cycle bombs, was impressed. Keegark was completely obliterated
+under an outward-rolling cloud of smoke and dust that spread out for
+five miles at the bottom of the towering column.
+
+There had been a hundred and fifty thousand people in that city, even
+if their faces were the faces of lizards and they had four arms and
+quartz-speckled skins. What fraction of them were now alive, he could
+not guess. He had to remind himself that they were the people who had
+burned Eric Blount and Hendrik Lemoyne alive; that two of the three
+bombs that had contributed to that column of boiling smoke had been
+made in Keegark, by Keegarkans, and that, with a few causal factors
+altered, he was seeing what would have happened to Konkrook. Perhaps
+every Terran felt a superstitious dread of nuclear energy turned to
+the purposes of war; small wonder, after what they had done on their
+own world.
+
+For one thing, he thought grimly, the next geek who picks up the idea
+of soaking a Terran in thermoconcentrate and setting fire to him will
+drop it again like a hot potato. And the next geek potentate who tries
+to organize an anti-Terran conspiracy, or the next crazy
+caravan-driver who preached _znidd suddabit_, will be lynched on the
+spot. 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 after
+that. After you drop the first bomb, there is no turning back, any
+more than there had been after Hiroshima, four-hundred-and-fifty-odd
+years ago. Why, he had even been considering just where, against the
+mountains back of Bwork, he would drop a demonstration bomb as a
+prelude to a surrender demand.
+
+You either went on to the inevitable catastrophe, or you realized, in
+time, that nuclear armament and nationalism cannot exist together on
+the same planet, and it is easier to banish a habit of thought than a
+piece of knowledge. Uller was not ready for membership in the Terran
+Federation; then its people must bow to the Terran Pax. The Kragans
+would help--as proconsuls, administrators, now, instead of
+mercenaries. And there must be manned orbital stations, and the
+Residencies must be moved outside the cities, away from possible
+blast-areas. And Sid Harrington's idea of encouraging the natives to
+own their own contragravity-ships must be shelved, for a long time to
+come. Maybe, in a century or so....
+
+Kankad had a good idea, at that, a most meritorious idea. He was sold
+on it, already, and he doubted if it would take much salesmanship with
+Paula, either. Already, she was clinging to his arm with obvious
+possessiveness. Maybe their grandchildren, and the Kankad of that
+time, would see Uller a civilized member of the Federation....
+
+They paused, as the gun-cutter nuzzled up to the _Procyon_ and the
+canvas-entubed gangway was run out and made fast, looking back at the
+fearful thing that had sprouted from where Keegark had been.
+
+"You know," Paula was saying, echoing his earlier thought, "but for
+that female pornographer, that would have been Konkrook."
+
+He nodded. "Yes. I hope you won't mind, but there will always be a
+place in my heart for Hildegarde."
+
+Then they turned their backs upon the abomination of Keegark's
+desolation and went up the gangway together, looking very little like
+a 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_
+
+EMPIRE
+FEDERATION
+FIRST CYCLE
+FOUR-DAY PLANET/LONE STAR PLANET
+FUZZY PAPERS
+FUZZY SAPIENS
+LITTLE FUZZY
+LORD KALVAN OF OTHERWHEN
+PARATIME!
+SPACE VIKING
+ULLER UPRISING
+THE WORLDS OF H. BEAM PIPER
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ULLER UPRISING
+
+"ZNIDD SUDDABIT!"
+
+
+So the Ulleran challenge begins, with the rantings of a prophet and a
+seemingly incidental street riot. Only when a dose of poison lands in
+the governor-general's whiskey does it become clear that the "geeks"
+have had it up to their double-lidded eyeballs with the imperialist
+Terran Federation's Chartered Uller Company. Then, overnight, war is
+everywhere.
+
+How it will end is in the (merely) two Terran hands of the new
+governor-general, a man shrewd enough to know that "it is easier to
+banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." The problem is,
+the particular piece of knowledge he needs hasn't been used in 450
+years....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Uller Uprising, by
+Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ULLER UPRISING ***
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