Honesty tempted von Schlichten, for a moment, to disclaim originality for the principles he had just enunciated, even at the price of trying to p.r.o.nounce the name of Niccolo Machiavelli with a geek-speaker.

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. Ha.s.san 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 the 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 ma.s.s 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 Ullr 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. 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 gun-b.u.t.ts 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. "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 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 Ullr 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 wouldn"t be there long, the way things looked. King Orgzild had four tons of plutonium, and with Prince Gorkrink probably able to build A-bombs, Keegark would be set to bring Ullr its first taste of nuclear warfare. Von Schlichten shuddered as he pictured that happening. At the moment, shuddering was about the only thing he could do.

X

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 were 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 Inland 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 air jeeps 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 Ullran, 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; Hideyoshi 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 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 awhile, the jumbled colors on the big screen resolved themselves into an image of Hideyoshi O"Leary, grinning like a p.u.s.s.ycat beside an empty goldfish-bowl, licking its chops.

"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...."