"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 s.p.a.ceship 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 sh.e.l.ls and bombs.

Keeping the car high enough to be above the trajectories of incoming sh.e.l.ls, Harry Quong circled over the city while Ha.s.san 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 sh.e.l.l 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 s.p.a.ceport, 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 s.m.u.ts_ got away, and we haven"t been able to locate the _Oom Paul Kruger_, either. They"re probably both on the Eastern Sh.o.r.e, 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 G.o.d, 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 p.u.s.s.y-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 G.o.ds 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-cla.s.s 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 Sh.o.r.e."

"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 ma.s.sacre, 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.