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."