VI

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.

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."

"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 north-east 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 Ullr 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 Ullr

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. "My God, it's happening all over Ullr! 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. "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!"

Colonel Cheng-Li, the Intelligence officer, 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."

* * * * *

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. Sending Kankad's five hundred

warriors and his meager contragravity there would be the same as

shovelling 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.

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. "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, and

finally 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 Blount and

Lemoyne?"

Von Schlichten shook his head.

* * * * *

"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."

Von Schlichten grimaced, but he'd expected something like it. 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.

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 Paid 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."

* * * * *

Leaving the booth, he heard, above the clatter of

communications-machines and the 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 Ullr!" 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. 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 Ullr, and that was the signal they'd

agreed upon, probably months in advance!"

"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-sabre

alarmists for their pains." He turned away from Keaveney. "Barney, where

is 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 north-west;

Kragans as skirmishers, to intercept geeks trying to slip away from

the cavalry barracks."

* * * * *

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 awhile.

"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 airlifted all our

Kragans and half the Sixth N.U.N.I. to the Palace, and we have the

Zirks patrolling the streets on 'saur-back. 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 the

whole passel of Skilkan fifth columnists."

"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. Within a few minutes, a saurian Ullran

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, Hurkkirk, who was in the

pay of King Firkked of Skilk, may Jeels devour him alive! I have

Hurkkirk's head here somewhere. I can have it found, if you want to

see it."

"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.

"Hurkkirk 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?" O'Leary asked, as he

saw the general.

"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 in to 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 Ullr Company is going to be impressed by it."

"The Ullr 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.

"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 Ullr." He felt a brief sadistic pleasure as he watched

Keaveney's face sag in horror. "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 awhile. 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

Ullr.

"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

Ullr 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 arrangements 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."