"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, in that case, let"s go."

As he hurried from the banquet-room, he could hear Keaveney tapping on his wine-gla.s.s.

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

A woman captain met him just inside the door of the big soundproofed room of the telecast station, next to the Administration Building.

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

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 a.n.a.lysis. 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, at about 2210, 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. 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 gla.s.s 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 pa.s.s; 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 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! G.o.d d.a.m.n, so that was it!" von Schlichten almost shouted.

"Now I know what he wanted with Stalin, and that goat, and those rabbits! Of course they"d need terrestrial animals, to find out what would poison a Terran! 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. "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 d.a.m.n 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, 2258. Tell Eric Blount what"s happened, and what you"ve done, as soon as you can get in touch with him at Keegark. 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 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 Ullr"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."

"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 I planned, just yet."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 had thrown on the emergency lights. There was a confused ma.s.s 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. 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 the panting captain.

"Tenth North Ullr 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 Ullr 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!"

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 Ullr 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. 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 G.o.ddam geek servants ...!"

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