VII.
Bismillah! How Dumb Can We Get?
The lights had come on inside the semicircular and now openstorm-porch of Company House, but it was still daylight outside. Thesky above the mountain to the west was fading from crimson toburnt-orange, and a couple of the brighter stars were winking intovisibility. Von Schlichten and the sergeant hurried a hundred yardsdown the street between low, thick-walled office buildings to thetelecast station, next to the Administration Building.
A woman captain met him just inside the door of the big soundproofedroom.
"We have a wavelength open to Konkrook, general," she said. "In booththree."
He nodded. "Thank you, captain.... We've all lost a true friend,haven't we?"
Another girl, a tech-sergeant, was in the booth; on the screen was theimage of a third young woman, a lieutenant, at Konkrook station. Thesergeant rose and started to leave the booth.
"Stick around, sergeant," von Schlichten told her. "I'll want you totake over when I'm through." He sat down in front of the combinationvisiscreen and pickup. "Now, lieutenant, just what happened?" heasked. "How did he die?"
"We think it was poison, general. General M'zangwe has ordered autopsyand chemical analysis. If you can wait about ten minutes, he'll beable to talk to you, himself."
"Call him. In the meantime, give me everything you know."
"Well, the governor decided to go to bed early; he was going huntingin the morning. I suppose you know his usual routine?"
Von Schlichten nodded. Harrington would have taken a shower, put onhis dressing-gown, and then sat down at his desk, lighted his pipe,poured a drink of Terran bourbon, and begun to write his diary.
"Well, at 2210, give or take a couple of minutes, the Kraganguard-sergeant on that floor heard ten pistol-shots, as fast as theycould be fired semi-auto, in the governor's room. The door was locked,but he shot it off with his own pistol and went in. He found GovernorHarrington on the floor, wearing only his gown, holding an emptypistol. He was in convulsions, frothing at the mouth, in horriblepain. Evidently he'd fired his pistol, which he kept on his desk, tocall help; all the bullets had gone into the ceiling. The sergeantpunched the emergency button, beside the bed, and reported, then triedto help the governor, but it was too late. One of the medics got therein five minutes, just as he was dying. He'd written his diary up tonoon of today, and broken off in the middle of a word. There was abottle and an overturned glass on his desk. The Constabulary got therea few minutes later, and then Brigadier-General M'zangwe took charge.A white rat, given fifteen drops from the whiskey-bottle, died withthe same symptoms in about ninety seconds."
"Who had access to the whiskey-bottle?"
"A geek servant, who takes care of the room. He was caught, an hourearlier, trying to slip off the island without a pass; they wereholding him at the guardhouse when Governor Harrington died. He's nowbeing questioned by the Kragans." The girl's face was bleaklyremorseless. "I hope they do plenty to him!"
"I hope they don't kill him before he talks."
"Wait a moment, general; we have General M'zangwe, now," the girlsaid. "I'll switch you over."
The screen broke into a kaleidoscopic jumble of color, then cleared;the chocolate-brown face of Themistocles M'zangwe was looking out ofit.
"I heard what happened, how they found him, and about that geekchamber-valet being arrested," von Schlichten said. "Did you getanything out of him?"
"He's admitted putting poison in the bottle, but he claims it was hisown idea. But he's one of Father Keeluk's parishioners, so...."
"Keeluk! God damn, so that was it!" von Schlichten almost shouted."Now I know what he wanted with Stalin, and that goat, and thoserabbits!"
Five thousand miles away, in Konkrook, Themistocles M'zangwe whistled.
"_Bismillah_! How dumb can we get?" he cried. "Of course they'd needterrestrial animals, to find out what would poison a Terran! Wait aminute; I'll make a note of that, to spring on this geek, if theKragans haven't finished him by now." Von Schlichten watched M'zangwepick up a stenophone and whisper into it for a moment. "All right,Carlos, what else?"
"Has Eric been notified?"
"We called Keegark, but he's in audience with King Orgzild, and wecan't reach him."
"Well, who's in charge at Konkrook, now?"
"Not much of anybody. Laviola, the Fiscal Secretary, and HansMeyerstein, the Banking Cartel's lawyer, and Howlett, the PersonnelChief, and Buhrmann, the Commercial Secretary, have made up a sort ofquadrumvirate and are trying to run things. I don't know what wouldhappen if anything came up suddenly...." A blue-gray uniformed arm,with a major's cuff-braid, came into the screen, handing a slip ofpaper to M'zangwe; he took it, glanced at it, and swore. VonSchlichten waited until he had read it through.
"Well, something has, all right," the African said. "We just got acall from Jaikark's Palace--a revolt's broken out, presumably headedby Gurgurk; Household Guards either mutinied or wiped out by themutineers, all but those twenty Kragan Rifles we loaned Jaikark. They,and about a dozen of Jaikark's courtiers and their personal retainers,are holding the approaches to the King's apartments. Thenative-lieutenant in charge of the Kragans just radioed in; says thesituation is desperate."
"When a Kragan says that, he means damn near hopeless. Is this beingrecorded?" When M'zangwe nodded, he continued: "All right. Use therecording for your authority and take charge. I'm declaring martialrule at Konkrook, as of now, 2253. Tell Eric Blount what's happened,and what you've done, as soon as you can get in touch with him. I'mleaving for Konkrook at once; I ought to get in by 0800.
"Now, as to the trouble at the Palace. Don't commit more than onecompany of Kragans and ten airjeeps and four combat-cars, and tellthem to evacuate Jaikark and his followers and our Kragans to GongonkIsland. And alert your whole force. These geek palace revolutions arealways synchronized with street-rioting, and this thing seems to havebeen synchronized with Sid Harrington's death, too. Get our Kragansout if you can't save anybody else from the Palace, but sacrificingthirty or forty men to save twenty is no kind of business. And keepsending reports; I can pick them up on my car radio as I come down."He turned to the girl sergeant. "Keep on this; there'll be more comingin."
He rose and left the booth. If we can pull Jaikark's bacon off thefire, he was thinking, the Company can dictate its own terms to himafterward; if Jaikark's killed, we'll have Gurgurk's head off for it,and then take over Konkrook. In either case, it'll be a long steptoward getting rid of all these geek despots. And with Eric Blount asGovernor-General....
The girl captain in charge of the station met him as he came out.
"Poison," he told her. "A geek servant did the job, on orders fromGurgurk and possibly Rakkeed. Gurgurk's started a putsch against KingJaikark; I'm going to Konkrook at once. Call the military airport andhave my command-car brought to Company House."
Harry Quong and Hassan Bogdanoff had been at the banquet, too; on aworld of lizard-faced silicate-eaters, the social difference between ahuman general and a human aircar-driver was almost infinitesimal. He'dhave to talk to Barney Mordkovitz, too; when word of events atKonkrook got out among the local geeks, as it probably had already....
The inner door of the soundproofed telecast-room burst open, three menhurried inside, and it slammed shut behind them. In the briefinterval, there had been firing audible from outside. One of the menhad a pistol in his right hand, and with his left arm he supported acompanion, whose shoulder was mangled and dripped blood. The third manhad a burp-gun in his hands. All were in civilian dress-shorts andlight jackets. The man with the pistol holstered it and helped hisinjured companion into a chair. The burp-gunner advanced into theroom, looked around, saw von Schlichten, and addressed him.
"General! The geeks turned on us!" he cried. "The Tenth North Uller'smutinied; they're running wild all over the place. They've taken theirbarracks and supply-buildings, and the lorry-hangars and themaintenance-yard; they're headed this way in a mob. Some of the ZirkCavalry's joined them."
/> "How about the Kragans?"
"The Eighteenth Rifles? They're with us. I saw a party of them firinginto the mob; I saw some of the Tenth N.U.N.I. tossing a dead Kraganon their bayonets...."
"Have any ammo left for that burp-gun? Come on, then; let's see whatit's like at Company House," von Schlichten said. "Captain Malavez,you know what to do about defending this station. Get busy doing it.And have that girl in booth three tell Konkrook what's happened here,and say that I won't be coming down, as planned, just yet."
He opened the door, and the rattle of shots outside became audibleagain. The civilian with the burp-gun knew better than to let ageneral go out first; elbowing von Schlichten out of the way, hecrouched over his weapon and dashed outside. Drawing his pistol, vonSchlichten followed, pulling the door shut after him.
Darkness had fallen, while he had been inside; now the whole CompanyReservation was ablaze with electric lights. Somebody at thepower-plant--either the regular staff, if they were still holding, orthe mutineers, if they had taken it--had thrown on the emergencylights. There was a confused mass of gray-skinned figures in front ofCompany House, reflected light twinkling on steel over them; from thedirection of the native-troops barracks more natives were coming onthe run. On the roof of a building across the street, two machine-gunswere already firing into the mob. A group of Terrans came running outof a roadway between two buildings, from the direction of therepair-shops; several of them paused to fire behind them with pistols.They started toward Company House, saw what was going on there, andveered, darting into the door of the building from which theauto-weapons were firing. From up the street, a hundred-oddsaurian-faced native soldiers were coming at the double, bayonetsfixed and rifles at high port; with them ran several Terrans.Motioning his companion to follow, von Schlichten ran to meet them,falling in beside a Terran captain who ran in front.
"What's the score, captain?" he asked.
"Tenth North Uller and the Fifth Cavalry have mutinied; so have theserag-tag Auxiliaries. That mob down there's part of them." He waspuffing under the double effort of running and talking. "Whole thingblew up in seconds; no chance to communicate with anybody...."
A Terran woman, in black slacks and an orange sweater, ran across thestreet in front of them, pursued by a group of enlisted "men" of theTenth North Uller Native Infantry, all shrieking "_Znidd suddabit!_"The fugitive ran into a doorway across the street; before her pursuerswere aware of their danger, the Kragans had swept over them. There wasno shooting; the slim, cruel-bladed bayonets did the work. From behindhim, as he ran, von Schlichten could hear Kragan voices in a new cry:"_Znidd geek! Znidd geek!_"
The mob were swarming up onto the steps and into the semi-rotunda ofthe storm-porch. There was shooting, which told him that some of thehumans who had been at the banquet were still alive. He wondered,half-sick, how many, and whether they could hold out till he couldclear the doorway, and, most of all, he found himself thinking ofPaula Quinton. Skidding to a stop within fifty yards of the mob, heflung out his arms crucifix-wise to halt the Kragans. Behind, he couldhear the Terrans and native-officers shouting commands to form front.
"Give them one clip, reload, and then give them the bayonet!" heordered. "Shove them off the steps and then clear the porch!"
"One clip, fire, and reload, at will!" somebody passed it on inKragan.
The hundred rifles let go all at once, and for five seconds theypoured a deafening two thousand rounds into the mutineers. There wassome fire in reply; a Zirk corporal narrowly missed him with a pistol,he saw the captain's head fly apart when an explosive rifle-bullet hithim, and half a dozen Kragans went down.
"Reload! Set your safeties!" von Schlichten bellowed. "Charge!"
Under human officers, the North Uller Native Infantry would have stoodfirm. Even under their native-officers and sergeants, they should nothave broken as they did, but the best of these had paid for theirloyalty to the Company with their lives, and the rest had destroyedtheir authority by revolting against the source from which it wasderived. At that, the Skilkan peasantry who made up the Tenth Infantryand the Zirk cavalrymen tried briefly to fight as individuals,shrieking "_Znidd suddabit!_" until the Kragans were upon them,stabbing and shooting. They drove the rioters from the steps or killedthem there, they wiped out those who had gotten into the semicircle ofthe storm-porch. The inside doors, von Schlichten saw, were open, butbeyond them were Terrans and a dozen or so Kragans. Hideyoshi O'Learyand Barney Mordkovitz seemed to be in command of these.
"We had about thirty seconds' warning," Mordkovitz reported, "and theKragans in the hall bought us another sixty seconds. Of course, we allhad our pistols...."
"Hey! These storm-doors are wedged!" somebody discovered. "Thosegoddam geek servants ...!"
"Yeah, kill any of them you catch," somebody else advised. "If wecould have gotten these doors closed...."
The mob, driven from the steps, was trying to reform and renew theattack. From up the street, the machine-guns, silent during thebayonet-fight, began hammering again. The mob surged forward to getout of their fire, and were met by a rifle-blast and a hedge ofbayonets at the steps; they surged back, and the machine-guns flailedthem again. They started to rush the building from whence theautomatic-fire came, and there was a fusillade and a shriek of "_Zniddgeek!_" from up the street. They turned and fled in the direction fromwhence they had come, bullets scourging them from three directions atonce.
For a moment, von Schlichten and the three Terrans and eighty-oddKragans who had survived the fight stood on the steps, weapons poised,seeking more enemies. The machine-guns up the street stuttered a fewshort bursts and were silent. From behind, the beleaguered Terrans andtheir Kragan guards were emerging. He saw Jules Keaveney and his wife,Commander Prinsloo of the _Aldebaran_, Harry Quong and Bogdanoff. Ah,there she was! He heaved a breath of relief and waved to her.
The Kragans were already setting about their after-battle chores.About twenty of them spread out on guard; the others, by fours, wentinto the street, one covering with his rifle while the other threechecked on their own casualties, used the short, leaf-shaped swordsthey carried to slash off the heads of enemy wounded, and collectedweapons and ammunition. A couple of hundred more Kragans, led byNative-Major Kormork, the co-parent of young with King Kankad, came upat the double and stopped in front of Company House.
"We were in quarters, aboard the _Aldebaran_ and in the guesthouse atthe airport," Kormork reported. "We were attacked, fifteen minutesago, by a mob. We took ten minutes beating them off, and five moregetting here. I sent Native-Captain Zeerjeek and the rest of the forceto retake the supply-depot and the shops and lorry hangars, which hadbeen taken, and relieve the military airport, which is under attack."
There was still firing from the commercial airport and the smallermilitary airfield. Once there was a string of heavy explosions thatsounded like 80-mm rockets.
"Good enough. I hope you didn't spread yourself out too thin. What'sthe situation at the commercial airport?"
"The two ships, the _Aldebaran_ and the freighter _Northern Star_, areboth safe," Kormork replied. "I saw them go on contragravity and riseto about a hundred feet."
"Whose crowd is that you have?" he asked the Terran lieutenant who hadtaken over command of the first force of Kragans.
"Company 6, Eighteenth Rifles, sir. We were on duty at the guardhouse;fighting broke out in the direction of the native barracks. A coupleof runners from Captain Retief of Company 4 came in with word that hewas being attacked by mutineers from the Tenth N.U.N.I. but that hewas holding them back. So Captain Charbonneau, who was killed a fewminutes ago, left a Terran lieutenant and a Kragan native-lieutenantand a couple of native-sergeants and thirty Kragans to hold theguardhouse, and brought the rest of us here."
Von Schlichten nodded. "You'd pass the military airport and thepower-plant, wouldn't you?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. The military airport's holding out, and I saw thered-and-yellow danger-lights on the fence around the power-plant."
&nbs
p; That meant the power-plant was, for the time, safe; somebody'd turnedtwenty thousand volts into the fence.
"All right. I'm setting up my command post at the telecast station,where the communication equipment is." He turned to the crowd that hadcome out onto the porch from inside. "Where's Colonel Cheng-Li?"
"Here, general." The Intelligence and Constabulary officer pushedthrough the crowd. "I was on the phone, talking to the militaryairport, the commercial airport, ordnance depot, spaceport, ship-docksand power-plant. All answer. I'm afraid Pop Goode, at the citypower-plant, is done for; nobody answers there, but the TV-pickup isstill on in the load-dispatcher's room, and the place is full ofgeeks. Colonel Jarman's coming here with a lorry to get combat-carcrews; he's short-handed. Port-Captain Leavitt has all the nativelabor at the airport and spaceport herded into a repair dock; he'skeeping them covered with the forward 90-mm gun of the _NorthernStar_. Lorry-hangars, repair-shops and maintenance-yards don'tanswer."
"That's what I was going to ask you. Good enough. Harry Quong, HassanBogdanoff!"
His command-car crew front-and-centered.
"I want you to take Colonel O'Leary up, as soon as my car's broughthere.... Hid, you go up and see what's going on. Drop flares wherethere isn't any light. And take a look at the native-labor camp andthe equipment-park, south of the reservation.... Kormork, you take allyour gang, and half these soldiers from the Eighteenth, here, and helpclear the native-troops barracks. And don't bother taking anyprisoners; we can't spare personnel to guard them."
Kormork grinned. The taking of prisoners had always been one of thoseirrational Terran customs which no Ulleran regarded with favor, oreven comprehension.