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."