“The Northern Lights got in about three hours ago, general,” she told him. “She had four of King Yoorkerk’s infantry regiments aboard—the Seventh, Glorious-and-Terrible, the Fourth, Firm-in-Adversity, the Second, Strength-of-the-Throne, and the Twelfth, Forever-Admirable. They’re the sorriest-looking rabble I ever saw, but Hideyoshi says they’re the best Yoorkerk has, and they all have Terran-style rifles. General M’zangwe broke them into battalions, and put a battalion in with each of the Kragan regiments. I think they’re more afraid of the Kragans than they are of the rebels.”
He nodded. That was probably the best way to employ them, within the existing situation. The trouble was, Them M’zangwe was incurably tactical-minded. Put those geeks of Yoorkerk’s in with the Kragans and they’d be most useful in conquering Konkrook, but the trouble was that, after associating with Kragans, they might develop into reasonably good troops themselves, to the undesired improvement of King Yoorkerk’s army. On the other hand maybe not. Keep them in Company service long enough, and they might want to forget about Yoorkerk and stay there.
“How’s the situation over in town?” he asked.
“Well, it’s slowing up, since we began pulling contragravity out,” she told him, “but the geeks are breaking up rapidly. … Oh, there was something funny about that hassle, last evening, when the Procyon came in. Two contragravity vehicles, an aircar and an air-lorry, that went out to meet the ship, are unaccounted for.”
“You mean two of our vehicles are missing?”
She shook her head, frowning in perplexity. “Well, no. All the vehicles that answered that unidentified-aircraft alert returned, but there were these two that went out that we haven’t any record of. Colonel Grinell is investigating, but he can’t find out anything. …”
“Tell him not to waste any more time,” he said. “Those two were probably geeks from Konkrook. You know, that’s how the von Schlichten family got out of Germany, in the Year Three—flew a bomber to Spain. The Konkrook war-criminals are getting out before the Army of Occupation moves in.”
“Well, the posts at the old Kragan castles report some contragravity, and parties riding ’saurs, moving west from the city,” she told him. “There are a lot of refugees on the roads. And combat reports from Konkrook agree that resistance is getting weaker every hour. … And the supra-atmosphere observation-craft—they’re beginning to call her the Sky-Spy—is up a hundred and fifty miles over Keegark. We have radar and vision screens and telemetered radiation and other detectors here, tuned to her. They’re installing a similar set on the Northern Lights at the shipyard. By the way, Air-Commodore Hargreaves wants to know if he can take a pair of 155 mm rifles from the Channel Battery and mount them on the Lights.”
“Yes, of course, he can have anything he wants, as long as it isn’t urgently needed for the bomb project.”
“Sky-Spy reports normal contragravity traffic between Keegark and the farming-villages around—aircars, lorries, a few scows—but nothing suspicious. No trace of either of the Boer-class ships. Kankad’s people are building receiving sets to install on the Procyon and the Aldebaran, and another set for Kankad’s Town. Pickering and his people are still working, but they all look pretty frustrated. They have Major Thornton, at the ammunition plant, doing experimental work on chemical-explosive charges to bring the subcritical masses together and hold them together till an explosion can be produced; they’re using most of the skilled electrical and electronics people to work up a detonating device. That’s why Kankad’s people are doing most of the detection-device work. Hargreaves is fitting a lot of small craft—combat-cars and civilian aircars—with radar sets, to use for patrolling.”
“That sounds good,” von Schlichten said. “I’ll be around and see how things are, after I’ve had some breakfast.”
He had breakfast at the main cafeteria, four floors down; there wasn’t as much laughing and talking as usual, but the crowd there seemed in good spirits. He spent some time at headquarters, watching Keegark by TV and radar. So far, nothing had been done about direct reconnaissance over Keegark with radiation-detectors, but Hargreaves reported that a couple of privately owned aircars were being fitted for the job.
He made a flying inspection trip around the island, and visited the farms south of the city, on the mainland, and, finally, made a sweep in the command-car over the city itself. Reconnaissance in person was an archaic and unprogressive procedure, and it was a good way to get generals killed, but one could see a lot of things that would be missed on TV. He let down several times in areas that had already been taken, and talked to company and platoon officers. For one thing, King Yoorkerk’s flamboyantly named regiments weren’t quite as bad as Paula had thought. She’d been spoiled by the Kragans in her appreciation of other native troops. They had good, standard-quality, Volund-made arms; they were brave and capable; and they had been just enough insulted by being integrated into Kragan regiments to try to make a good showing.
By noon, resistance in the city was beginning to cave in. Surrender flags were appearing on one after another of the Konkrookan rebel strong-points, and at 14:30, after he had returned to the Island, a delegation, headed by the Konkrookan equivalent of Lord Mayor
