“Aboard his ship. He hitched a ride to the airport with Jarman, when he was here picking up aircrews.”
“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 11:00, 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 reinforcements 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 airlifted 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, audiovisual,” the girl replied. “Just a minute, general.”
He put in his geek-speaker. The screen exploded into multicolored 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
