VI
There was fresh intelligence from Konkrook, by the time he returnedto the telecast station. Mutiny had broken out there among thelaborers and native troops, who outnumbered the Terrans and theirKragan mercenaries on Gongonk Island by five thousand to five hundredand fifteen hundred respectively. The attempt to relieve Jaikark'spalace had been called off before the relief-force could be sent;there was heavy and confused fighting all over the island, and most ofthe combat contragravity and about half the Kragan Rifles had had tobe committed to defend the Company farms across the Channel, on themainland, south of the city. There had also been an urgent call forhelp from Colonel Rodolfo MacKinnon, in command of Company troops atthe Keegark Residency.
He called Keegark; a girl, apparently one of the civilian telecasttechnicians, answered.
"We must have help, General von Schlichten," she told him. "The nativetroops, all but two hundred Kragans, have mutinied. They haveeverything 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, wemust have help...."
A call came in, a few minutes later, from Krink, five hundred miles tothe north-east across the mountains; the Resident-Agent there, oneFrancis Xavier Shapiro, reported rioting in the city and an attemptedpalace-revolution against King Jonkvank, and that the Residency wasunder attack. By way of variety, it was the army of King Jonkvank thathad mutinied; the Sixth North Ullr Native Infantry and the twocompanies of Zirk cavalry at Krink were still loyal, along with theKragans.
* * * * *
There was a pattern to all this. Von Schlichten stood staring at thebig map, on the wall, showing the Takkad Sea area at the EquatorialZone, and the country north of it to the Pole, the area of Ullroccupied by the Company. He was almost beginning to discern theunderlying logic of the past half-hour's events when Keaveney, theSkilk Resident, blundered into him in a half-daze.
"Sorry, general; didn't see you." His face was ashen, and his jowlssagged. "My God, it's happening all over Ullr! Why, it's the end ofall of us!"
"It's not quite that bad, Mr. Keaveney." He looked at his watch. Itwas now nearly an hour since the native troops here at Skilk hadmutinied. Insurrections like this usually succeeded or failed in thefirst 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 askBrigadier-General Mordkovitz how the fighting was going at thenative-troops barracks.
"Not badly, general. Colonel Jarman's got some contragravity up andworking. They blew out all four of the Tenth N.U.N.I.'s barracks; theTenth and the Zirks are trying to defend the cavalry barracks. Some ofour Kragans managed to slip around behind the cavalry stables. They'releading out hipposaurs, and sniping at the rear of the cavalrybarracks."
"That'll give us some cavalry of our own; a lot of these Kragans aregood riders.... How about the repair-shops and maintenance-yard andlorry-hangars? I don't want these geeks getting hold of that equipmentand using it against us."
"Kormork's outfit are trying to take back the lorry-hangars. Jarman'sgot a couple of airjeeps and a combat-car helping them."
"... won't be one of us left by this time tomorrow," Keaveney waswailing, to Paula Quinton and another woman. "And the Company isfinished!"
Colonel Cheng-Li, the Intelligence officer, approached Keaveney andtried to quiet him. At the same time, a woman in black slacks and anorange sweater--the one whose pursuers had been overrun by the Kragansat the beginning of the fighting--approached von Schlichten.
"General; King Kankad's calling," she said. "He's on the screen inbooth four."
* * * * *
Kankad's face was looking out of the screen at him, with PhilYamazaki, the telecast operator at Kankad's Town, standing behind him.
"Von!" The Kragan spoke almost as though in physical pain. "What can Ido to help? I have twenty thousand of my people here who are capableof bearing arms, all with firearms, but I have transport for only fivehundred. Where shall I send them?"
Von Schlichten thought quickly. Keegark was finished; the Residencystood in the middle of the city, surrounded by two hundred thousand ofKing Orgzild's troops and subjects. Sending Kankad's five hundredwarriors and his meager contragravity there would be the same asshovelling them into a furnace. The people at Keegark would have to bewritten 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 findadditional transport for you. I'll call him."
"I'll send off what force I can, at once," Kankad promised. "How doesit go with you at Skilk?"
"We're holding, so far," he replied.
Captain Inez Malavez, the woman officer in charge of the station, puther head into the booth.
"General! Immediate-urgency message from Colonel O'Leary," she said."Native laborers from the mine-labor camp are pouring into themine-equipment park. Colonel O'Leary's used all his rockets andmg-ammunition trying to stop them."
"Call you back, later," von Schlichten told Kankad. "I'll see whatThem M'zangwe can do about transport; get what force you can startedfor Konkrook at once."
He left the booth. "Barney!" he called. "General Mordkovitz! Who's theranking officer in direct contact with the Eighteenth Rifles? MajorFalkenberg?"
"That's right."
"Well, tell him to get as many of his Kragans as he can spare down tothe equipment-park." He turned to Inez Malavez. "You call Jarman; tellhim what O'Leary reported, and tell him to get cracking on it. Tellhim not to let those geeks get any of that equipment ontocontragravity; 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 orlorries, to get Falkenberg's Rifles to the equipment-park.... How'sbusiness at the lorry-hangars and maintenance-yard?"
"Kormork's still working on that," the girl captain told him. "Nothingdefinite, yet."
* * * * *
In one corner of the big room, somebody had thumbtacked aten-foot-square map of the Company area to the floor. Paula Quintonand Mrs. Jules Keaveney were on their knees beside it, pushing outhandfuls of little pink and white pills that somebody had brought intwo bottles from the dispensary across the road, each using abilliard-bridge. The girl in the orange sweater had a handful ofscribbled notes, and was telling them where to push the pills. Therewere other objects on the map, too--pistol-cartridges, andcigarettes, and foil-wrapped food-concentrate wafers. Paula, seeinghim, straightened.
"The pink are ours, general," she said. "The white are the geeks." VonSchlichten suppressed a grin; that was the second time he'd heard heruse that word, this evening. "The cigarettes are airjeeps, thecartridges are combat-cars, and the wafers are lorries ortroop-carriers."
"Not exactly regulation map-markers, but I've seen stranger thingsused.... Captain Malavez!"
"Yes, sir?" The girl captain, rushing past, her hands full ofteleprint-sheets, stopped in mid-stride.
"What we need," he told her, "is a big TV-screen, and a pickup mountedon some sort of a contragravity vehicle at about two to five thousandfeet directly overhead, to give us an image of the whole area. Cando?"
"Can try, sir. We have an eight-foot circular screen that ought to doall right for two thousand feet. I'll implement that at once."
Going into a temporarily idle telecast booth, he called Konkrook, andfinally got Themistocles M'zangwe on the screen.
"How is it, now?" he asked.
"Getting a little better," the Graeco-African replied. "Half an hourago, we were shooting geeks out the windows, here; now we have themcontained between the spaceport and the native-troops and laborbarracks, and down the east side of the island to the farms. We havethe wir
e around the farms on the island electrified, and we're usingalmost all our combat contragravity to keep the farms on the mainlandclear." He hesitated for a moment. "Did you hear about Eric Blount andLemoyne?"
Von Schlichten shook his head.
* * * * *
"The whole party that were at Orgzild's palace were massacred. Some ofthem were lucky enough to get killed fighting. The geeks took Eric andHendrik alive; rolled them in a puddle of thermoconcentrate fuel andset fire to them. When we can spare the contragravity, we're going todrop something on the Kee-geek embassy, over in town."
Von Schlichten grimaced, but he'd expected something like it. He toldM'zangwe about King Kankad's offer. "His crowd ought to be coming inin a couple of hours. What can you scrape up to send to Kankad's Townto 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'renot much as transports, and we need them here pretty badly. Then, wehave five fertilizer and charcoal scows, and a lot of heavy transportlorries, and two one-eighty-foot pickup boats."
"How about the _Piet Joubert?_" von Schlichten asked. "She was due inKonkrook from the east about 1300 today, wasn't she?"
M'zangwe swore. "She got in, all right. But the geeks boarded her atthe dock, within twenty minutes after things started. They tried tolift out with her, and the Channel Battery shot her down into KonkrookChannel, off the Fifty-sixth Street docks."
"Well, you couldn't let the geeks have her, to use against us. What doyou hear from the other ships?"
"_Procyon's_ at Grank; we haven't had any reports of any kind fromthere, 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 DeWett_ were both at Keegark; we can assume Orgzild has both of them."
"All right. I'm sending _Aldebaran_ to Kankad's, to pick up morereenforcements for you."
* * * * *
Leaving the booth, he heard, above the clatter ofcommunications-machines and the hubbub of voices, Jules Keaveneyarguing contentiously. Evidently Colonel Cheng-Li's efforts to dragthe Resident out of his despondency had been an excessive success.
"But it's crazy! Not just here; everywhere on Ullr!" Keaveney wassaying. "How did they do it? They have no telecast equipment."
"You have me stopped, Jules," Mordkovitz was replying. "I know a lotof rich geeks have receiving sets, but no sending sets."
The pattern that had been tantalizing von Schlichten took visibleshape in his mind. For a moment, he shelved the matter of the_Aldebaran_.
"They didn't need sending equipment, Barney," he said. "They usedours. Sid Harrington was poisoned in Konkrook. The news, of course,was sent out at once, as the geeks knew it would be, to everyresidency and trading-station on Ullr, and that was the signal they'dagreed upon, probably months in advance!"
"Well, what was our Intelligence doing; sleeping?" Keaveney demandedangrily.
"No; they were writing reports for your civil administration blokes tostuff in the wastebasket, and being called mailed-fist-and-rattling-sabrealarmists for their pains." He turned away from Keaveney. "Barney, whereis Dirk Prinsloo?"
"Aboard his ship. He hitched a ride to the airport with Jarman, whenhe 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 topick 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 thinkwe 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 theubiquitous girl in the orange sweater were struggling to get a bigcircular TV-screen up, then turned to look at the situation-map. Agirl tech-sergeant was keeping Paula Quinton and Mrs. Jules Keaveneyinformed.
"Start pushing geeks out of the Fifth Zirk Cavalry barracks," thesergeant was saying. "The one at the north end, and the one next toit; they're both on fire, now." She tossed a slip into the wastebasketbeside her and glanced at the next slip. "And more pink pills back ofthe barracks and stables, and move them a little to the north-west;Kragans as skirmishers, to intercept geeks trying to slip away fromthe cavalry barracks."
* * * * *
A young Kragan with his lower left arm in a sling and a daub ofantiseptic plaster over the back of his head came up and gave him aradioprint slip. Guido Karamessinis, the Resident-Agent at Grank, hadreported, at last. The city, he said, was quiet, but King Yoorkerk'stroops had seized the Company airport and docks, taken the _Procyon_and the _Northern Lights_ and put guards aboard them, and weresurrounding 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," hetold the Grank Resident. "If the rebellion's put down, he'll comeforward as your friend and protector; if we're wiped out elsewhere,he'll yell '_Znidd suddabit!_' and swamp you. Don't antagonize him; wecan'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 offreckles 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 keepingopen a couple of streets between there and here. We airlifted all ourKragans and half the Sixth N.U.N.I. to the Palace, and we have theZirks patrolling the streets on 'saur-back. Now, we have our lorriesand troop-carriers out picking up elements of Jonkvank's loyal troopsoutside town."
"Who's doing the rioting, then?"
She named three of Jonkvank's regiments. "And the city hoodlums, andpriests from the temples of one sect that followed Rakkeed, and thewhole passel of Skilkan fifth columnists."
"How long do you think it'd take, with the equipment you have, toairlift 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 Ullranface was looking out of it at him; a harsh-lined, elderly, face, withan old scar, quartz-crusted, along one side.
"Your Majesty," von Schlichten greeted him.
Jonkvank pronounced something intended to correspond to vonSchlichten'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 amtold that your soldiers in Krink have risen against you, and that yourloyal troops are far from the city."
"Yes. That was the work of my War Minister, Hurkkirk, who was in thepay of King Firkked of Skilk, may Jeels devour him alive! I haveHurkkirk's head here somewhere. I can have it found, if you want tosee it."
"Dead-traitors' heads do not interest me, King Jonkvank," vonSchlichten replied, in what he estimated that the Krinkan king wouldinterpret as a tone of cold-blooded cruelty. "There are too manytraitors' heads still on traitors' shoulders.... What regiments areloyal to you, and where are they now?"
Jonkvank began naming regiments and locating them, all at minorprovincial towns at least a hundred miles from Krink.
"Hurkkirk did his work well; I'm afraid you killed him toomercifully," von Schlichten said. "Well, I'm sending the _NorthernStar_ to Krink. She can only bring in one regiment at a trip, the waythey're sc
attered; which one do you want first?"
Jonkvank's mouth, until now compressed grimly, parted in a gleamingsmile. He made an exclamation of pleasure which sounded rather like aboy running along a picket fence with a stick.
"Good, general! Good!" he cried. "The first should be the regimentMurderers, at Furnk; they all have rifles like your soldiers. Havethem brought to the Great Square, at the Palace here. And then, theregiment 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 thework 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 thiswickedness, both here and there!"
"Good. Now, if you will pardon me, I'll go to give the necessaryorders...."
* * * * *
As he left the booth, he saw Hideyoshi O'Leary in front of thesituation-map, and hailed him.
"Harry and Hassan are getting the car re-ammoed; they dropped me offhere. Want to come up with us and see the show?" O'Leary asked, as hesaw the general.
"No, I want you to go to Krink, as soon as Harry brings the car hereagain." He told O'Leary what he intended doing. "You'll probably haveto go around ahead of the _Star_ and alert these regiments. And assoon as things stabilize at Krink, prod Jonkvank into airliftingtroops here. You're authorized, in my name, to promise Jonkvank thathe can assume political control at Skilk, after we've stuffedFirkked's head in the dustbin."
Jules Keaveney, who always seemed to be where he wasn't wanted, heardthat and fairly screamed.
"General von Schlichten! That is a political decision! You have noauthority to make promises like that; that is a matter for theGovernor-General, at least!"
"Well, as of now, and until a successor to Sid Harrington can be senthere from Terra, I'm Governor-General," von Schlichten told him,mentally thanking Keaveney for reminding him of the necessity for sucha step. "Captain Malavez! You will send out an all-station telecast,immediately: Military Commander-in-Chief Carlos von Schlichten, beinginformed of the deaths of both Governor-General Harrington andLieutenant-Governor Blount, assumes the duties of Governor-General, asof 0001 today." He turned to Keaveney. "Does that satisfy you?" heasked.
"No, it doesn't. You have no authority to assume a civil position ofany 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'tfancy the Ullr Company is going to be impressed by it."
"The Ullr Company," von Schlichten replied, "is six and a half parsecsaway. It takes a ship six months to get from here to Terra, andanother six months to get back. A radio message takes a little overtwenty-one years, each way." He holstered the pistol again.
"That brings up another question, general," one of Keaveney'ssubordinates said. "Can we hold out long enough for help to get herefrom 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 liveTerran left on Ullr." He felt a brief sadistic pleasure as he watchedKeaveney's face sag in horror. "On this planet, there's not more thana three months' supply of any sort of food a human can eat. And theships that'll be coming in until word of our plight can get to Terrawon't bring enough to keep us going. We need the farms and livestockand the animal-tissue culture plant at Konkrook, and the farms atKrink and on the plateau back of Skilk, and we need peace and nativelabor to work them."
* * * * *
Nobody seemed to have anything to say after that, for awhile. ThenKeaveney suggested that the next ship was due in from Niflheim inthree months, and that it could be used to evacuate all the Terrans onUllr.
"And I'll personally shoot any able-bodied Terran who tries to boardthat ship," von Schlichten promised. "Get this through your heads, allof you. We are going to break this rebellion, and we are going to holdUllr 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 formedaround him and Keaveney. "Miss Quinton, you just heard me order myadjutant, Colonel O'Leary, on detached duty to Krink. I want you totake over for him. You'll have rank and authority as colonel for theduration of this war."
She was thunderstruck. "But I know absolutely nothing about militarymatters. There must be a hundred people here who are better qualifiedthan I am...."
"There are, and they all have jobs, and I'd have to find replacementsfor them, and replacements for the replacements. You won't leave anyvacancy to be filled. And you'll learn, fast enough." He went over tothe situation-map again, and looked at the arrangements of pink andwhite pills. "First of all, I want you to call Jarman, at the militaryairport, and have an airjeep and driver sent around here for me. I'mgoing up and have a look around. Barney, keep the show going while I'mout, and tell Colonel Quinton what it's all about."