Part 22

1

The Bolbod punchcraft was quite clear on the screen. Cylindrical, a small miniature of the Bolbod war vessel from which it came, it was about to make its landing near the dam.

The small gray man sat in his small gray office and watched. He was mildly interested in a detached sort of way.

He was very glad he had asked his communications officer to install the racks and extra screens. A Jambitchow war vessel had joined them—commanded by an officer in glittering gold scales and eyes where his mouth ought to be—had been informed of the situation, had been told that they didn’t know yet whether this was the one, had agreed to join the combined force, and was now in orbit with the rest. The Jambitchow face was now on its own viewscreen, watching, like the rest, the outcome of this “punch” as the Bolbod called it. Six screens, five of them with intent faces, the sixth carrying the long-range view of this raid.

For the last few days the small gray man had felt much better. It had been a good idea to go down and see that old woman again. She was certain it could not have been her yarb tea that had caused his indigestion. Had he drunk anything in some heathen country? Well, never mind, drink this “buttermilk.”

He had drunk the buttermilk. It was quite cold and good to taste and shortly his indigestion had greatly eased. But the old woman had not let it go at that. A cousin in some distant past had sent some plants to some ancestors of hers and they were still flourishing up the hill near the spring. It was called “peppermint” and she would go get some, and she had, steering a bit wide around the parked spaceship. The green leaves had a pleasant aroma and he had chewed some, and astonishingly, his indigestion eased even more! She had given him a whole pocketful of the leaves.

The small gray man had tried to pay her, but she wouldn’t have it; she said it was just the neighborly thing to do. He had persisted however, and she finally said, well, there was a Swedish colony up the coast she was never able to talk to, and that thing around his neck, the one he talked into and it talked English, would it talk Swedish? He’d been happy to give it to her—he had several—and had changed its microplates while sitting pleasantly on a bench outside her door, with both the dog and the cow seemingly quite interested in what he was doing. It had been a pleasant afternoon.

The Bolbod punchcraft banged down near the overgrown walkway at the dam. They were carrying a demolition kit.

“I thought this was just a probe,” said the Hawvin. “Didn’t we agree they were just to discover what those people had done down at that dam?” They had watched the terrestrial antics around them, had seen them blow up a bunch of trees, and their curiosity had been greatly aroused. No heat had accompanied the eruption of trees and nothing had burned. “If we use demolition on the dam, it could become political.”

“I command my own crew,” rumbled the Bolbod on his screen. That was the trouble with combined forces, everyone tried to run everybody else’s ship! But combined force had been his idea so he couldn’t say much more.

There had been three Bolbod crewmen in the punchcraft. The first one, carrying the demolition kit, was followed at some distance by the other two.

The faces on the viewscreens were very intent as they followed this operation. It was their first probe down to the surface. The small gray man had tended to advise against it but this was a military matter. They all knew that one must test the enemy’s defenses.

The leading Bolbod was now about fifty feet from the powerhouse door. The roar of the spillway was coming back up the infrabeam, very strong. That was an awfully big dam.

Abruptly there was a flash!

A rolling ball of flame rocketed skyward.

The image on the screen jittered from the concussion.

The first Bolbod had vanished, blown to bits. Whatever he tripped had also detonated his own demolition kit.

The other two Bolbods who had been well behind him had been knocked flat.

“Aha!” said the Hockner super-lieutenant as though he had known it all the time.

But the “aha!” wasn’t for the explosion. A marine-attack plane that a moment before hadn’t been on their screens landed clear of the explosion area. A small unit of people leaped out.

Swedes, thought the small gray man, seeing their blonde hair. Led by a black-bearded young officer in kilts who carried a claymore and a blast pistol.

A ramp went down on the attack plane’s side and a forklift rolled to the ground.

The Swedes had some chains in their hands and were wrapping up the two recumbent Bolbods. Thin little shouts of command were coming back up the infrabeam, almost engulfed by the roar of the dam spillway.

The Scot officer was trying to find pieces of the exploded Bolbod, picking up items of bloody cloth. He seemed to find something. He put it in a bag and waved to the forklift. They now put the huge Bolbod bodies into the plane with the forklift. The lift came back and put the punchcraft inside.

The plane took off and went back north. The terrestrial group went into the powerhouse and vanished from sight.

The faces on the viewscreens were hard to read. They were grappling with this situation.

They didn’t have too much time to ponder, for their second probe was now in progress, and infrabeams shifted to the snowy crest of Mount Elgon, which gleamed above the clouds far below.

It had annoyed them to see an old device they took to be an ancient radio telescope mounted up there. It seemed to be tracking them as they orbited.

A Hockner probe ship with five Hockners had been assigned to disable the device. And there was the Hockner probe now, nearing its destination. A Hockner probe carried no artillery itself but the men did. The noseless, overly ornamented crew members were visible under the probe canopy. It was little more than a sled and was jet-powered. There seemed to be very high winds and it was having trouble setting down on a broad, icy shoulder of the peak. There was a precipice there that dropped down into the clouds. Yes, it was a high wind; plumes of snow were blowing away from the peak. Just ahead of them, but set well back from the edge, was the offending radio telescope. Beyond that object, out of the view of the probecraft, a glacier fell away.

The faces watching it on their separate screens were quite different in reactions. It was taking the probecraft so long to get down to a landing, going out and back again time after time, that their attention was drifting.

The Tolnep half-captain was doing some calculations about slave prices. He knew an air planet where you could get a thousand credits a slave if you could get them there alive. He estimated that he had a potential here of about fifteen thousand, landed live, out of maybe thirty thousand shipped. That was fifteen million Galactic credits. His nineteen percent of that, the prize money he would get personally, would be 2,850,000 credits. His loaners were owed 52,860 credits in gambling debts (the reason he was happy to undertake a very long cruise) and this left him 2,797,140 credits. He could retire!

The Hawvin was thinking about all the silver and copper coins that must be in the ruins of old banks—the Psychlos valued neither metal, but he knew a market for it.

The Bolbod had been thinking about all the Psychlo machinery down there up until the time his punchcraft was captured. Now he was thinking about punching terrestrials.

The Jambitchow commander was wondering how he could do the rest of these aliens out of slaves, metal and machinery.

Finally the probecraft made it and sat down on the ledge and their attention riveted on it.

The five Hockners got out, bulky in their fancy space suits and clumsy in swinging their blast rifle straps off their shoulders.

Suddenly the voice of the Hockner landing control officer in orbit crackled out of their radios down there and came back up the infrabeam.

“Alert to the battle plane!”

There was a battle plane up at about two hundred thousand feet. But it had been there for an hour, doing nothing. And it was doing nothing now. The five Hockners were looking at it way up there, a tiny speck to them, hard to find in the blue sky they saw.

“No, no!” barked the Hockner landing control officer. “Around the corner from you! Coming up the glacier!”

Only then did the watching faces see it. From their viewpoint it was just a line on the glacier, just the top of its body showing, the rest cut off by the jutting crag above the telescope. The battle plane had hugged the glacier all the way up! It was almost a hundred yards back of the telescope when it stopped. No one here could see whether anyone got out of it. It must be holding in that position on its motors. The glacier was steep.

The five Hockners, alert now but seeing no one yet, crouched, guns ready. Then they sprinted forward.

A hammering burst of blast guns flared just behind the telescope.

One Hockner, near the edge, was hit, thrown out into space, and went spinning down through the clouds.

The Hockner sled, struck by a burst, slithered backward, teetered and dropped into empty space.

The four remaining Hockners charged through the snow and wind, guns going.

The relentless pounding of blast rifles racketed up the infrabeam. The whole area under the telescope seemed to be erupting continuous green gouts of thundering energy.

One Hockner down. Two down. Three down! The fourth almost reached the telescope and then thudded into the snow.

The only sound now was the whistle of wind around the peak.

Several terrestrials sprang into view from beyond the radio telescope. They rushed forward, their red-and-white high-altitude suits looking like splashes of blood against the snow. They turned over the Hockners, took their weapons. One terrestrial looked over the edge where the fifth Hockner and the probecraft had fallen, but the only cushion down there was the tops of the clouds far below.

The Hockners were picked up and lugged off by the terrestrials. Using safety lines and slipping and sliding down the glacier, they loaded the Hockners into the marine-attack plane which was now more visible.

One terrestrial came back and checked over the radio telescope and then he went sliding down the glacier, grabbed the door of the plane, and swung aboard.

The plane took off and went down through the clouds. The infrabeam shifted to penetrate the overcast and followed it back to the minesite.

“That proves it,” said the Tolnep half-captain. “It was just as I thought all along.”

He ignored the comments to the effect that he had favored the probes.

“It was a lure,” he continued. “It is quite obvious that at the dam yesterday they went down and made a harmless eruption of trees to intrigue us. Then they lay in wait and succeeded in capturing two Bolbod crewmen.

“The radio telescope,” he went on, “is just a dummy, as I suspected. They have not been used for centuries. Everyone uses infrabeams to pick up faint signals and broadcasts. So they put it there in an elaborate charade to attract down a probe. None of the Hockner crew besides the one so clumsy as to fall off the cliff were killed. The guns were all on ‘Stun.’ Thus they succeeded in luring four Hockners.”

“Should you be talking so plainly?” said the Jambitchow commander, stroking his polished scales. “They may have us on monitor.”

“Nonsense,” said the Tolnep. “Our detectors show no infrabeams and we are just on local. I tell you no one has used radio telescopes since . . . since . . . the Hambon Sun War! They have far too much clutter; they are too bulky. That’s just a dummy down there. And did you notice the cute way that officer came back and ‘adjusted’ it. They’re just hoping we’ll try again.”

“I shouldn’t think they need to,” said the Hawvin. “They now have two Bolbod crew and four Hockners to interrogate at leisure. Knowing Psychlo methods of interrogation, I shouldn’t care to be those crewmen!”

“They’re not Psychlos!” said the Hockner super-lieutenant, covering up the fact that he was aghast at the fate of his crewmen.

“Yes, they are,” said the Bolbod. “You saw that Psychlo with the terrestrials the other day down by the lake. The Psychlos are using aliens as a subject race. They’ve done it before. I vote we go down in an actual mass attack and pound out any installation they have, now! Before they are further prepared.”

But at that moment they were startled when a hazy image appeared on all their screens. It was a gray black-haired and bearded human visage. The eyes were blue. The being seemed to be wearing an old cloak.

“If you will turn up your transmission to planetary strength,” this newcomer said in Psychlo, “I would like to discuss returning your members to you. The two Bolbods are shaken up but not hurt. The four Hockners are just stunned, though one has a broken arm.”

They turned up to planetary strength, but their response was an emphatic uniform no!

The Tolnep half-captain managed to get his voice above the uproar. “So you can capture the rescue party? Emphatically, no!”

“We can put them all out on a slope—over by that black volcanic cone. All in the open and no ships of ours in the air.” The terrestrial was persuasive. “Call it a truce. Your pickup ship will not be fired upon or molested.”

“You haven’t interrogated them that fast,” said the Jambitchow, “so they must be dead!”

“They are quite all right,” said the terrestrial. “Are you sure you won’t pick them up?”

Emphatically, no!

“Very well,” said the terrestrial with a shrug of his shoulders. “At least tell us what they eat.”

The Tolnep gave a signal on his screen to the others. Let him speak. “Why, of course,” he said smoothly, smiling. “We will make up a food package and send it down.”

They went off planetary. “I told you,” said the Tolnep, “that those incidents were a lure. Now two of you have bungled, so let me handle this.”

Presently a rocket-borne package went out of an airlock of the Tolnep ship. It was very well aimed and its parachute burst open below the overcast. It went drifting down and landed just short of the lake shore.

Presently a vehicle went speeding away from the compound toward it. The faces on the viewscreens smiled. If those were Psychlos down there, or whoever they were, they were in for a surprise!

Then suddenly the Hockner super-lieutenant, who had been leafing hurriedly through a recognition book, said, “Oh, I say! That’s a Basher ‘Bash Our Way to Glory’ tank! Totally armored!”

The tank went down near the package, lowered a turret gun, and fired a mild stun shot into it. The package, being a bomb of course, exploded in a geyser of flame. The tank fired a second shot at the remains. Then somebody got out of it and collected the hot fragments.

“We even gave them bomb fragments for analysis!” shouted the Hawvin.

They held a hasty conference. The small gray man listened to them. Military minds, he thought to himself, could be quite remarkable at times. They decided that anything those terrestrials did was just a lure; that the strategy of those people was to take the invader to bits piecemeal and then pulverize him; that they should now wait for the courier the small gray man said was coming sometime, the one that might tell them if the one had been found; meanwhile only the safest type of probes should be attempted in areas obviously not guarded or covered. Then the moment they knew, one way or the other, whether this was the one, they would plunge in with a mass war-vessel attack and defeat and gut the place.

All the commanders agreed except the Tolnep. He was still in a rage about his bomb failing.

“I should go down there right now,” hissed the Tolnep, “and bite the lot of them to death!”

“We think that’s an excellent idea,” drawled the Hockner, adjusting his monocle.

“Yes, why don’t you do that!” the rest agreed. And, “We’re sure you should.”

The Tolnep realized they would only be too happy to get rid of him. He subsided for now. Later would be another matter.

2

Jonnie had gone on his trip to look at bases but he found himself looking at people.

The flight had been pleasant enough. A new pilot had thought he would be flying Jonnie, but the very idea of having to be flown about amused him: he didn’t have a broken arm! But an escort of three Mark 32 battle planes, long-range ones that also were designed to carry a squad of Psychlo marines or employees, got into the air behind him when he took off and stayed right with him. He had flown northeast over Africa, the Red Sea, and the Middle East and into Russia, making good time two hundred thousand feet up and looking for a pattern of lakes and rivers Colonel Ivan had showed him with a finger in sand. He had expected to find snow, but although it was late autumn, the only snow was on towering peaks below and to the east. He found his landmarks, found his preplanned landing space, and found himself in the middle of a sea of surging people! Colonel Ivan was holding them back with a dozen mounted lancers so that he had a place to land. There must be five hundred people in that throng.

He opened the door and was blasted with sound. They were cheering themselves hoarse! He couldn’t even understand what they were saying, such were the rolling waves of sound. He couldn’t really distinguish individual faces among so many.

Colonel Ivan dismounted as Jonnie got down from the plane. The colonel was a little stiff and too formal, thinking possibly Jonnie blamed him because of Bittie—the colonel was wearing a black band around his sleeve. But Jonnie threw an arm around his shoulders and it was abruptly all right.

They had brought him a horse, a golden-colored stallion with a sheepskin saddle, and he swung up. The crowd cheered. He only knew one word of Russian and that was Zdrastvuitye, which meant “How do you do, hello.” So he called it loudly and the crowd cheered.

Jonnie looked around. They were close to, in fact right up against, the mountains, fairly high mountains . . . fourteen thousand feet? They had snow on them. The ancient Russian base must be nearby. He had thought they would go right to it and he could get his observation and estimation done right away. But no, everybody seemed to have other ideas. There were some skin-and-felt tents, and fires put their smoke in the air, and suddenly Jonnie realized this crowd was in their best clothes. This was a holiday! And the way they pressed in upon him, he certainly was the reason. He wondered fleetingly whether Thor had been up here, for if he had, then a lot of these people would think he knew them. Well, his one word of Russian would have to get him by.

The colonel’s horsemen were opening the way. Every time Jonnie raised his hand and nodded there was a new ear-bashing burst of cheering. Colors, faces! He knew the sound of Russian well enough to know it was Russian, but he was also hearing scattered words like “Bravo!” and “Bueno!” and “Viva!” Sounded like the llaneros. Yes! There was a flat-crowned, black-leather hat. Several of them. And some huge straw hats.

The smell of roasting meat and the tang of dung fires was in the air. A band made up of balalaikas and Spanish guitars and Andean flutes and Mongol drums was splitting the air.

The colonel got him to a skin tent that had been set up for him and with a final wave of the hand and his one word of Russian—now no longer adequate—he got inside.

A coordinator had also come in and through him Jonnie wanted to know, couldn’t they go to the base now?

The colonel was aghast. Nyet, nyet, there was time for all that. One had to think of the people! Many of them, in fact most of them, had never met Jonnie before, had never even seen him.

Jonnie said he was thinking of the people! To get them safe from possible harm.

Well, harm was always around, according to the colonel, but not every day was an opportunity to meet Jonnie. Vyehrnah? (Right?)

At that, Jonnie was glad to get out of his heavy flight suit for it was much less cold here than he had thought. The colonel had brought his kit in but he ignored it. He had a near-white buckskin suit he had had made—not quite like the one on the credit bank note—those loops there on each side of the breast were cartridge loops—but the village girls had done very well. Those moccasins should fit, but here were some military boots and red baggy pants if he preferred. This gold helmet? Well, it wasn’t really gold. It was a lightweight Russian helmet, armor-proof aluminum no less, and somebody flying through here had taken it down to the old minesite at Grozny and plated it with beryllium. See? It didn’t have any star or ornament on it, but this chin strap with the heavy ear pads, and the colored beads all over it, had been done by one of the Siberian tribes, and wasn’t it nice? And besides, Dr. MacKendrick had told Jonnie to be careful of his head after the fractures. So wear it! Jonnie said he couldn’t hear with it buckled. Wear it!

Jonnie washed his face and got dressed and told the colonel he was a bully and the colonel confessed he was far worse than that.

It was this way: his original plan to have Americans man this base had been passed by the old council—before it went funny. They’d recruited some South Americans and sent them over. But there was a tribe up in the Arctic descended from political prisoners in Siberia and they spent most of their time starving to death, so they had come down en masse, dogs and all, and they were here—the Siberians were the ones out there in white bearskins. And then there was a little tribe they’d found in the Caucasus that had survived, and they were here. So it really was getting pretty manned up with Russians. But they had an American here. Yes! You want to see? He’s right outside.

The American was ushered in and he was pulling a young girl behind him. He stood there grinning. It was a boy from Jonnie’s own village! Tom Smiley Townsen. They were very glad to see each other. Tom Smiley was a big lad, almost as big as Jonnie, and a year younger. He said he had graduated from machine school and heard they didn’t have enough operators over here for this job and had caught a ride, and he’d been working here for over a month running minesweepers and teaching others and fixing things that broke down.

This was his girl, Margarita. “Margarita, permiteme presentarte al Gran Señor Jonnie.”

The girl was very pretty, very shy and overawed. Jonnie bowed. He had seen Sir Robert do that. And she bowed.

Tom Smiley said they were going to get married in a few weeks. And Jonnie said he hoped they had lots of children. And Margarita blushed when Tom Smiley translated it, but nodded her head with enthusiasm.

For the first time, Jonnie learned the village had moved. Tom Smiley had been trained so he could keep the passes open in winter using a blade scraper, and they wouldn’t have the usual winter starvation, but now that they were moved, there was less snow. It was to the town Jonnie had recommended, but Brown Limper had sent troops to force them to go to it. They had even had to leave their belongings behind, but he thought by now the other boys—two more were machine operators now and two were pilots—would have collected those up for them.

The colonel pushed them out and gave Jonnie a sip of the “finest vodka ever brewed,” and it almost took the top off Jonnie’s head. What a cure for flight fatigue! Must have been out of bears’ teeth!

The colonel said that was absolutely correct, how did he guess the formula, and took him outside again.

Most of the people were going about their business getting ready for a big party and dance, but they smiled and smiled as they passed Jonnie.

Two German pilots from the African base were sitting in front of a fire drinking something. The third pilot was upstairs flying patrol, the rumble of the motors faint due to his extreme altitude. Jonnie told them in Psychlo they should relax and enjoy themselves, and they just looked at him respectfully. Jonnie knew they had completely different orders: two on alert for scramble, sleeping in their planes with the radio on, one ship always in the air. Jonnie realized all this good cheer and festivity in the air was dulling his awareness of the facts of today—they were at war with powerful forces.

The colonel led him to a small knoll, and with an expansive hand showed him how great this country was. There was wild cotton, enough to clothe thousands, there was wild wheat and wild oats, and herds of sheep and cattle enough to feed hundreds of thousands. Those ruins way over there had been a city full of factories, and although the machines didn’t work with existing motors, Tom Smiley thought he could get some looms running—which made Jonnie wonder whether they didn’t have another Angus on their hands in Tom Smiley.

Did Jonnie know there was a tomb over to the southeast, way over, where the emperor of the world was buried? A Mongol named Timur i Leng. Nearly two thousand years ago he had ruled the whole world. It was a fact. He would have to take Jonnie over there and show him the tomb. It said so right on it.

Jonnie had heard quite enough about Hitlers and Napoleons and such. He had often wondered whether—if such vermin had not been so intent on personally ruling the world—man might have had the cultural advancement to repel the Psychlo invasion. He had heard some theory that it required war to invent technology and he thought that must be a Psychlo maxim. But he didn’t tell Colonel Ivan that. He admired the truly beautiful view.

The base? The colonel responded to Jonnie’s question. It was up there, not very far away from here. He’d give him a whole tour tomorrow.

As they started down, a big, jolly-looking Scot and two aides met them. It was Sir Andrew MacNulty, the head of the Federation and chief of all the coordinators. He had gotten the word Jonnie was here and had just flown in. He had a pleasing manner and cheery laugh, very admired by his extensive and busy corps of coordinators. Jonnie was very glad to see him, for the business he was here for involved the movement of tribes. He complimented Sir Andrew on the magnificent work the coordinators were doing and Sir Andrew thanked him for saving the lives of that pair in Africa. Jonnie knew he could get along with this man. Good.

About sunset the party was ready, and the big square box constellation in the sky was well down before it finished. Dances and music, and more dances. Spanish dances. The Dance of the Bear Hunt from Siberia. Wild leaping dances from the Caucasus. Firelight and laughter. Good food and drink. Since it seemed everyone had to clink a cup with Jonnie and since he had never done much drinking, he had quite a head the next morning when the colonel, all bustling efficiency, broke him out.

After a bit of breakfast they trooped off in a mob to see the ancient defense base. The colonel said that they had all worked on it and they were all going along to make sure he liked it and to straighten anything up he didn’t like. They were no longer in their party clothes. They were here now to go back to work as needed.

The ancient base was entered though a tunnel that was masked by overhangs. Built to resist nuclear bombing and to serve as a command post, it was deep. Due to occasional earthquakes in this area, it had been built very strong. It lacked the polish and finish of the American base, but it was even bigger.

They had lighted it with Psychlo mine lamps. They had buried the vast numbers of dead with honors. They had swept everything up with Psychlo minesweepers flown in from Grozny. Tom Smiley had gotten the water lines working. The colonel said he really hadn’t intended for him and his men to help so much, for this should be an American base, but they had the experience and so they had pitched in.

The amounts of stores were vast. Uniforms were not as well packaged and sealed as the American ones had been, but much of the stores were useful. Possibly the quality was even better. Look at these portable “flamethrowers.” They still worked!

A hundred thousand assault rifles called AK 47 had been found totally preserved, and they had retailored the ammunition with and without radiation. They presented Jonnie with one that they had chrome-molecular plated down at Grozny and five thousand rounds of guaranteed no-misfire ammunition in clips.

The Russian premier had apparently never gotten here, but his command post had been ready. Jonnie thought that must be a picture of him, that big one on the wall, but he was told no, that was a picture of a former tsar named Lenin. Possibly in the time of Timur i Leng, they were not sure, but it was evidently a very respected picture so they had left it.

Level after level, passage after passage, they trooped through the vast base, stopping now and then to show Jonnie things, smiling at his praise, very happy that he was pleased with it.

But the main thing Jonnie was happy with was the underground hangars. Here was room for thousands of planes. The very thing. Storage. Exactly what he had hoped to find. They had used blade scrapers to push out the crumbled ruins that they said were “MIGS” and other craft. Jonnie could not read the alphabet but many of them could, and they showed him some of the labels they had salvaged before pushing the mounds of warplanes out. “MIGS” meant “airplane” in Russian, they said.

The hangars had their own ports and entrances. Just what Jonnie wanted!

They showed him the tactical nuclear and other nuclear manuals. They were all in Russian, but one old fellow from the Hindu Kush assured Jonnie he could read them.

There was a lot of nuclear-weapons storage to the north and they were not going near it until they got the manuals read. There were a lot of “silos” too that had powder rockets still in them, but the powder was dangerous to handle. It had gone bad, but little pieces blew up if you hit them hard with a hammer. Not very useful.

They also showed him a coal mine nearby where the black rocks burned. So heating and fuel were handy.

Now they were going to get a lot of these black rocks. They were going to harvest a lot of that wild wheat. They had plans. Jonnie said the plans were great and they had done so very well that they were great, too. He was very, very pleased. He shook the hands of hundreds of people.

It was not until dawn the following day that he could leave for Tibet. What had been intended as a two-hour check of a base had developed into a two-day tour. He was amazed what people could do if you let them just get at it, without a lot of government restricting them.

He was wearing the new helmet when he left. The colonel saw to that. Buckled down, too! The colonel didn’t care if he couldn’t hear. Motors were bad for the ears, and at high altitudes, his ears would get cold. Jonnie laughed at him but he wore it.

3

As an experienced, if not always a lucky, gambler, Half-Captain Rogodeter Snowl of the Tolnep Elite Space Navy considered that he knew a sure thing when he saw it, no matter how bad his eyes were lately.

A week ago he had discovered a radio band down there on the planet that the others of the combined force did not seem to be aware of—and he was not going to tell them. It was apparently termed “The Federation Channel” and it gave news and orders and carried reports of some creatures called “coordinators.” It dealt with tribes. As an officer of a navy that depended mainly on slavery for its prize money, he felt anything to do with people down there was of vast interest. This was a trade Tolneps were good at, well equipped to handle, and happy to engage in.

He had told the other ships that there really should be a guard on the opposite side of the planet and had separated from them, taking a position in orbit out of their direct view.

Two days ago he had been amazed at the security those potential slaves down there omitted. They chattered away in a language called “English”—which he had vocoder circuits for from ages back—and they were making advance arrangements for the visit of a notable.

It had been too late to do anything about a visit this notable made to a flat plain in the north, but not too late to observe it. He had been amazed to see that it was the man on the one-credit note. And even easier to identify by a gold helmet.

The Federation network was chattering away about his next intended visit. It was an ancient city in the mountains they called “Lhasa.” The coordinators were to gather up some tribes at that point for a reception and do this and do that. From there on it was easy. Careful search of those huge mountains down there showed movement of people converging on just one city. The site was protected all around by mountains and was itself at a high altitude. Lhasa!

Half-Captain Snowl made his plans quickly but well. Without informing the others, take that notable captive, interrogate him as only Tolneps—or maybe Psychlos—could interrogate, get the priceless information, use what was left of the notable to negotiate a planetary surrender, and to blazes with sharing anything with the rest. Pick up the population, pay his gambling debts, and retire! He had the time, the place and the opportunity. Act!

On his diamond-shaped bridge, Snowl went over to the Vulcor vessel’s watch officer list and found an officer to whom he had lost 2,021 credits—which Snowl still owed. It was Double-Ensign Slitheter Pliss. If this failed, that was one gambling debt the half-captain would not have to pay. But it could not possibly fail. Too standard an action.

He called Double-Ensign Pliss to the bridge, told him exactly what was wanted, ordered two marines broken out of deep sleep, authorized the use of a small strike launch, and got the kidnap underway.

It was a clear, beautiful day, and Jonnie turned the controls over to the German copilot. Jonnie was entranced with those mountains far below. He had never seen the Himalayas before. Impressive! Some of them were five miles high and a few nearly six. Snow and glaciers and wind plumes, deep valleys and frozen rivers, they were very emphatic mountains! And such a vast extent of them!

They were flying on a general southeasterly course and very high. They were only a bit above sonic since they were beforehand in their planned arrival time. It was relaxing not to listen to the heavy roar of their motors. The helmet ear pads were quite soundproof, much more so than the usual domed helmets. Strange to be flying without sound. Maybe the colonel was right—maybe it did hurt the ears.

The copilot had spotted a key, towering peak to their right. They were right on course. Jonnie relaxed—it had been quite a visit. After a while he got interested in the assault rifle they had given him: they had put it on the floor plates under his feet. A chrome-plated rifle! He wondered whether they had also chromed the inside of the bore—if they had, it would be dangerous to fire. He worked out how to field-strip the weapon and looked down the bore. No, they hadn’t chromed it, so it was fine. He put the weapon back together and practiced a bit with the cocking bolt. Then he put a magazine in it, and working the cocking bolt, ran a whole clip through it without firing. It all worked just fine. He reloaded the clip and checked the other clips. They worked too. He tested the balance of it by sighting on a peak. The sights took a little getting used to, and he practiced with them.

He didn’t hear the copilot trying to tell him they would shortly land, and was taken by surprise when he looked down and saw Lhasa. They were coming right on in.

What an impressive city it must have been once. A huge palace ruin went up the side of a red mountain. The palace was so big it was more than the mountain. There was a wide-open expanse just below the palace and a lot of other ruins stood around what must have been a park. The whole city was in a sort of bowl surrounded by high mountains.

Yes, and there was a little mob of people waiting at the far side of the park, most of them in furs, some in yellow robes. There was lots of space to land and Jonnie let the copilot bring the ship in over the top of a tumble of rubble that had once been a building and set her down. The huge ancient palace reared up on their right, the crowd was a hundred yards in front of the plane, and an ancient ruin was two hundred yards behind it.

Jonnie undid his security belts and swung the door partly open.

The crowd was simply standing over there. Perhaps two hundred people or more. They didn’t rush forward. They didn’t cheer. Oh, well, Jonnie thought, one can’t be popular everyplace.

The sling of the AK 47 caught on the console before him and he lifted it up, swung the door wider, and dropped to the ground. Usually the copilot would shift over to the pilot’s seat and Jonnie glanced up. The German was just sitting there, staring straight ahead.

Jonnie looked at the crowd again. Nobody came forward. Nobody moved. Eerie! There they were across the park, about a hundred yards away. He could make out three coordinators. They were also just standing there as though rooted.

They looked like people with a gun trained on them. An outdoorsman’s instinct caused him to whirl and look back of the plane, back toward the tumbled ruin two hundred yards behind his ship.

Three running figures were racing toward him, blast rifles held low.

They were gray. There were about the size of men. They wore big faceplates.

Tolneps!

They were closing the distance fast. Only seventy-five yards away.

Jonnie started to grab for his belt gun and realized he was holding the AK 47. He crouched, cocked the weapon, and sent a spray of fire at the figures.

They checked as though surprised. Then they began rushing at him in a crouching run.

The AK 47 slugs had not halted them.

Tolneps! What did he know about Tolneps? He had read the Psychlo manual only a few days ago. Eyes! They were half-blind and without faceplates couldn’t see.

He fumbled with the single-shot lever.

They were strung out, the nearest was now only fifty yards, the farthest about sixty.

Jonnie dropped to one knee. He sighted. He squeezed off at the farthest one’s faceplate. He shifted to the second. He sighted on the faceplate. He fired.

It had taken too long.

The leading one was almost upon him.

Fangs!

Faceplate!

No time to fire.

Jonnie leaped up and slammed the butt of the AK 47 into the Tolnep’s face.

He completed the movement with a slash of the barrel.

The Tolnep didn’t go down but he swerved.

Poison fangs. Mustn’t get too close.

Jonnie leaped backward, shifting the rifle to his left hand, and drew his belt blast gun.

He fired and fired at point-blank range. The force shots pounded the Tolnep to the ground.

Jonnie walked nearer, still firing. The blast pistol was literally pounding the Tolnep into the ground.

Geysers of dust blurred the view.

He hadn’t had the handgun on “Flame.” But the sheer force of it had knocked the Tolnep out. The faceplate was shattered; the strange eyes were glazed and rolled up into the head. Obviously knocked out.

The others! Where were they? One was running off toward the high, ruined palace, obviously unable to orient himself. The other one was making his way back to something in the tumbled wreck of a building. Jonnie could see the bright nose of a small craft jutting from its hiding place in a rubble cavity.

That one was trying to get back to a ship!

Jonnie leaped up to the cockpit and pulled a blast rifle out of its rack, throwing the AK 47 inside.

Back on the ground he knelt, steadied himself, and fired a single well-aimed shot at the Tolnep trying to get to his ship. No effect!

Jonnie threw the switches to “Flame” and “Maximum.” The Tolnep was inside the ruin, almost to his ship.

Jonnie sighted and squeezed the trigger.

The Tolnep erupted in a pillar of fire!

Swinging to the other one, Jonnie sighted in and squeezed off. A flash as the bolt struck and then a blast of fire as the Tolnep’s own rifle exploded.

Jonnie peered at the ship. Nobody else in it apparently. He looked down at the Tolnep at his feet. From insignia, he must be an officer.

Getting a safety line from the ship, Jonnie wound the Tolnep up in a tight series of loops and windings, and tied the end behind his back. He had not carried a rifle, only a handgun. The shots Jonnie had fired had messed it up, but he threw it far away. Then he dragged the Tolnep clear of the ship. Good Lord, he was heavy! Jonnie tapped the Tolnep’s “flesh.” Like iron. He looked human, but he was so dense, no wonder the AK 47 had had no effect. The slugs had just glanced off.

He felt the situation was in hand. It had happened too fast for the three escort planes to do anything and they were up there, circling now. He supposed they had been too far behind him to have seen the Tolneps begin their charge.

Jonnie looked around further. Then he was amazed. That the crowd was still standing there, a hundred yards in front of the plane, unmoving. Nobody had come forward. He looked up at his own ship. The German copilot was just sitting there staring straight ahead.

Jonnie reached in and grabbed the local radio. “Don’t come down here!” he told the other pilots.

That ship over there. Was it about to fire or blow up or something?

Jonnie hefted the blast rifle and, running in a wide detour, approached the ship.

They had certainly hidden it well. They had used a deep recess in the rubble and pushed the ship in until it was invisible from the air, maybe flown it in backward.

He approached it gingerly. It had blast cannon mounted on its nose. It was a bright silver color. It was shaped like a diamond. It had a canopy, now thrown back, that dropped over it to make an air seal. It had places for three and a sort of cargo space in the rear of it.

Jonnie, keeping his distance, rocked it with the barrel of the blast rifle. It didn’t blow up. It rocked very easily, surprisingly light to carry such heavy beings.

He put his hand on its side to climb into it. The ship was vibrating. Something on it was running.

He peered at the panel. Several lights were blinking. The controls were totally strange. He had no idea what alphabet those letters were part of. He didn’t know what kind of power it had beyond the generality in the Psychlo manual that they were usually “solar powered.”

Better not touch those controls. It might take off.

He glanced out at the crowd about three hundred yards away. They were just standing there, fixed in place.

For a moment he felt sort of fixed in place, too. But maybe that was just battle reaction.

Something in this ship was running! With his hand he traced the vibration. What he thought was a cannon was more than a cannon. It had two barrels, one over the other. The upper barrel had a flare at the “muzzle.”

The lethargy he felt was increasing.

Well, anything that ran had to have power one way or the other. Where was a power cable? He found a big thick one under the panel. It led down to an exposed accumulator.

There was a coil of line in the back of the craft and Jonnie tied it to the cable just above the accumulator connection. He got back, braced himself, and pulled hard.

The cable snapped off the accumulator.

There was a ferocious flash of sparks.

At once, three things happened. The craft stopped vibrating. The lethargy Jonnie had felt vanished. And the whole crowd out there collapsed. They fell to the ground and lay there.

Jonnie tied the cable away from the accumulator so it couldn’t short again and then ran out toward the crowd.

As he passed his plane, the German copilot was fumbling his way out of the door. He called something but Jonnie couldn’t hear him.

Reaching the crowd, Jonnie found a coordinator struggling to his knees. Others were stirring, sitting up groggily. The place was a litter of fallen banners, musical instruments, and odds and ends of what must have been a planned celebration.

The coordinator’s mouth was moving and Jonnie thought the Scot must have lost his voice. He couldn’t hear anything the coordinator was saying. Jonnie turned and saw an escort plane had landed. He hadn’t heard that.

Suddenly he realized it was this confounded helmet of Ivan’s. Jonnie unfastened the chin strap and got the huge, thick ear pads off his ears.

“. . . and how did you get here?” the coordinator was saying.

“I flew in!” said Jonnie, a bit sharply. “That’s my ship right over there!”

“There’s a creature on the ground!” said the coordinator. He was pointing at the tied-up Tolnep. “How did he get there?”

For a moment, Jonnie was a trifle exasperated. All this shooting and running . . . it dawned on him: none of these people had observed a thing that had gone on.

The people were confused and embarrassed. The three tribal chiefs there were coming up, bowing, upset. They had “lost face.” They had planned a very fine reception—see the banners, the musical instruments, the presents there—and he had already landed. So please excuse them. . . .

The coordinator was trying to answer Jonnie’s questions. No, they hadn’t seen anything strange. They had all come out here shortly after sunup to wait and then here he was, and their schedule was all out of kilter now and it must be nine of the morning . . . what? Two of the afternoon? No, that can’t be. Let’s see your watch!

They wanted to start the reception up now even though they didn’t feel that well. Jonnie told the coordinator in charge to hold it off a bit and got to the radio.

On local command, he told the two planes still holding to be very alert to any ship in orbit. Then he switched to planetary pilot band, knowing well it could be heard by the visitors. He got Sir Robert in Africa.

“The little birds tried to sing here,” said Jonnie. They didn’t have a code. They surely needed one. But he was making do. “All okay now. But our friend Ivan in his new hole must have a ceiling. Got it?”

Robert the Fox got it. He knew Jonnie meant him to get air cover to the Russian base and he would right away.

“Have our own band play ‘Swenson’s Lament,’” said Jonnie. There was no such Scot piper lament. Planetary radio silence, if you please. If the visitors had known he would be here, they were monitoring unguarded speech. “I may play a note or two but otherwise ‘Swenson’s Lament.’”

He turned off. The situation was more dangerous than he had thought. For all the people on this planet.

Only he had been “deaf.” Only he had been able to act. Therefore that bell-mouthed barrel had been emitting a sound wave of high intensity that produced a total paralysis. So that’s how the Tolneps did their slave trade.

4

The escort pilot who had just landed didn’t understand what had happened either, and he was trying to explain it to the coordinator who didn’t speak German. Jonnie asked the German whether he had recorded the action and the pilot said he had. Jonnie explained it to them both, in English to the coordinator and in Psychlo to the pilot, that it was a device on the nose of that hidden patrol ship over there. And they had better gather this crowd up and take them into a room of one of these ruins and explain, and play the disks for them so they wouldn’t think the place was full of devils. Soothe them down. They could have a reception later.

The crowd was trailing after the coordinator into a nearby interior. Jonnie walked over to the Tolnep.

The creature was conscious now. His eyes without his faceplate looked blind. They saw in some different light band and needed correction filters. Jonnie looked around and found the half-shattered plate and, keeping well away from the creature’s teeth, dropped it over his eyes. It tried to snap at him.

Jonnie hunkered down and said, “We will now begin your narrative, the long sad story of your youth, how circumstances drove you to crime, and how that fateful trail led you to this pitiful ending.”

“You’re mocking me!” snarled the Tolnep.

“Ah,” said Jonnie. “We speak Psychlo. Very good. Continue your story.”

“I will tell you nothing!”

Jonnie looked around. It was quite a drop from the top of that huge palace down to the valley. He carefully selected the spot and pointed it out. “We’re going to carry you up there and drop you. See the place just at the end of the long gable?”

The Tolnep laughed. “Wouldn’t even dent me!”

Jonnie was thoughtful for a while. “Well, we’re not really enemies of yours, so I am going to reconnect the wiring on your ship, put a little remote control I have in it, and send you back up to the Vulcor-class war vessel.”

The Tolnep was silent. Rather alertly silent.

“So I just better get to work on the remote control—” and Jonnie got up as though to go to his plane.

“Wait,” said the Tolnep. “You really wouldn’t do that, would you? Return me to my ship?”

“Of course. It’s the civilized thing to do!”

The Tolnep screamed, “You rotten foul Psychlos! You would do anything! Anything! There is no limit to your filthy sadism!”

“Why, what would they do to you?”

“They’d shoot me down and you know it! And I’d sizzle and burn in the air friction!”

“But why wouldn’t they want you?” said Jonnie.

“Don’t play around with me!” raved the Tolnep. “You think I’m stupid? You think they’re stupid? I notice you don’t mention sprinkling virus powder all over me to infect the crew. You are a fiend! Coughing my lungs out all the way there, writhing in agony as I fall, burning slowly mile after mile with the buildup of air-friction heat! You just plain go to hell!”

Jonnie shrugged. “It’s the civilized thing to do,” he said, and started toward the ship again.

“Wait! Wait, I tell you! What do you want to know?”

So Jonnie heard about the travails of this Double-Ensign Slitheter Pliss and his Half-Captain Rogodeter Snowl, and how stupid it was not to let a superior officer win at gambling. He heard a lot of other things, not really relevant, and then the double-ensign said, “Of course Snowl hasn’t told the crew, because he’ll take the whole prize himself, but it’s rumored that there’s a hundred-million-credit reward for finding the one.”

“What one?” said Jonnie.

But Double-Ensign Slitheter Pliss didn’t have anything more on it than that. He explained they were waiting to make sure, but either way the combined force would eventually attack en masse. The commanders of the ships were gambling via viewscreen for shares of the loot, and Rogodeter Snowl had already won the planet’s people, he thought, though Snowl often lied and one didn’t really know. But for certain they would need transport and maybe have to go home for it. Home? Did he ever notice a bright star—really a double star? Must be very bright from here. Constellation above it looked like a square box from this angle. Well, that was home. Ninth planet in the rings. The Tolneps only had one planet. They were raiders of other planets. Slaves.

That seemed to be all just now, so Jonnie told him he wouldn’t send him back to his ship. Not yet, anyway.

Jonnie had read that once a Tolnep bit, it took six days to develop more poison. So he got a mine sample bottle and a rag out of the plane and told the Tolnep to bite the rag a few times and the Tolnep resignedly did so. Jonnie put the rag in the bottle and put the lid on tightly. MacKendrick knew about snakebite serums. Maybe he could make one for Tolnep bites.

Another escort plane had landed. It had a copilot. There was a minesite down the mountain, smashed now, but it would have an ore carrier and they had spare fuel, so Jonnie sent them down to check one out and fly it up here. He was taking this Tolnep and the patrolcraft back. He also told them to see what the minesite could supply in the way of passenger carriers.

Jonnie looked up in the afternoon sky. He couldn’t see anything in orbit, but four hundred miles and daylight would make it invisible. An uneasy day.

The coordinator and the German pilot had shown the pictures and had taken the crowd over to see the ship and explain the gun to them. The throng was leaving it now. Coming back toward Jonnie, who was standing by the plane, they were within talking distance.

Abruptly, as though on signal, they all dropped down to their knees and began bowing their heads to the ground. And then they stayed down.

Jonnie had seen quite enough people falling down today. “Now what’s the matter?” he said to the coordinator.

“They are deeply ashamed. They planned a great welcome for you and it all went splat. But more than that,” said the coordinator, “they have developed a lot of respect for you. They had it before, but now—”

“Well, tell them to get up,” said Jonnie a bit impatiently. Adulation was not any pay he was after.

“You just saved their lives or maybe more,” said the coordinator.

“Nonsense,” said Jonnie. “I was just lucky to be wearing a helmet with ear pads. Now tell them to get up!”

The German pilot was near at hand. It seemed that this was the day for embarrassment. He was explaining to Jonnie again that he had dared not fire: a Mark 32’s guns might have blown half that palace right down on the crowd and Jonnie. It was an enclosed bowl here and the blow-back of the blast—Jonnie shook his head and waved him away.

The coordinator was introducing chiefs. A small man with a smiling Mongol face, wearing a fur hat, came forward. Jonnie shook his hand. The coordinator said this was Chief Norgay, head of what remained of the Sherpas. They were famous mountaineers and used to run salt caravans clear across the Himalayas in Nepal above India. They used to be very numerous, maybe eighty thousand, but there were only a hundred or two now: they had hidden high up in inaccessible places. There was very little food; even though they were good hunters, the game was scarce in high places.

And this was Chief Monk Ananda. The man was wearing a reddish yellow robe. He was big with a very peaceful face. He was a Tibetan and they had a monastery in caves. Any other Tibetans that remained in the country considered him their chief. You see, even before the Psychlo invasion, the Chinese had driven the Tibetans out of their country and they had gone to other lands. The Chinese had suppressed Buddhism—Ananda was a Buddhist—but the caves were very hard to reach, being way up a ravine in a peak, and the Psychlos had never succeeded in rooting them out. The Tibetans were pretty much starved. They were unable to come out to flat places and grow much food and even in this last summer had not been able to grow much due to lack of seeds.

And this man here was Chief Chong-won, head of all the Chinese that were left. Did Jonnie know there used to be six or eight hundred million Chinese? Imagine that! There was another tribe up in North China who had taken refuge in an old defense base in the mountains. The base? The Chinese never finished it. It wasn’t very much. There were only a hundred or two up in North China. But Chief Chong-won here had three hundred fifty people. They were in a valley that probably had been mined and the Psychlos never went near them, but there was hardly any food. Nothing much would grow up so high. Awfully cold. No, we don’t have any trouble talking with the Chinese. They preserved a lot of their university records and are quite literate: they speak Mandarin, an old court language.

Jonnie shook hands. They would bow! So he bowed and this pleased the Chinese enormously.

“Speaking of languages,” said the coordinator, “they had a little show for you. They’re all over there, so would you see it now?”

Jonnie glanced a bit uneasily at the sky. An escort was up there, very alert. He himself was not too far from the plane. He sent the German over to stand by his. Yes, he’d see the show. He felt bad; all their banners were on the ground, their musical instruments upside down in the turf.

About eighty people in reddish yellow robes were sitting now in precise rows. They were some of Chief Monk Ananda’s people. As Jonnie approached he could see that they were anywhere from eight years old to fifty. They all had shaved heads. They were boys, girls, men and women. They were trying to be very solemn as they sat with legs folded under them, but a gleam of mischief was in their eyes. An old monk was standing in front of them with a long scroll.

“We had trouble last spring,” said the coordinator. “Nobody, absolutely nobody, could talk to these people. Not in India or Ceylon—that’s an island—or anywhere could we find any trace at all of the Tibetan language or this one. We really looked. But we solved it. Listen!” He gave a signal to the old monk.

The Buddhist read a line from the scroll. The whole group sang out as one, a singsong, but not a repeat.

It was Psychlo!

The old monk read another line.

The group sang out the translation in Psychlo.

Jonnie was incredulous. The performance went right on, singsonging along.

“He’s reading a language that was once called ‘Pali,’” whispered the coordinator. “It’s the original language in which the canons of Buddhism were written. The monastery for some reason had in its possession a huge library of all the quoted tenets and words of Gautama Siddhartha Buddha, the man who started that religion about thirty-six hundred years ago. And they are literate in that language. But it is extinct. So we got a Chinko—”

“—instruction machine,” finished Jonnie, “and taught them Psychlo from scratch!”

“And they converted it back to Pali! That Psychlo minesite down there is pretty smashed, but it had a dictionary and some other books in a fireproof safe, and they’ve been going like a racehorse ever since. So we can talk to them.”

The singsong was going on. They were speaking with a Chinko accent, just like Jonnie and the pilots!

“You like that, Lord Jonnie?” said Chief Monk Ananda in Psychlo. “They not only sing it out, they also talk it really well.”

Jonnie applauded them loudly and they cheered. He knew what he was going to propose here.

“Is this all of them?” said Jonnie.

No, there were about forty more, but it was quite a scramble down here from the monastery. It took ropes and climbing skill and help from the Sherpas.

The idea of a religious teacher’s words of peace, as he had heard them in that singsong, being put into Psychlo, where all such sentiments went unused, was marvelous to Jonnie.

Some musicians had recovered their instruments and began to play on small horns and long horns and drums. Some women had gotten fires going and their slight amounts of food were being warmed.

The pilots came back from the minesite with an ore carrier. Jonnie got massive amounts of help, and they manhandled the patrolcraft into the big plane and put the Tolnep in it, very securely strapped down.

“There’s a lot of aircraft down there,” said Jonnie’s copilot. “The Scots that hit it must have set off an explosion in the compound. They must have blown the breathe-gas—the domes are scattered in pieces over about five acres. They didn’t bother to blow up the ammunition and fuel dumps. The hangars are on a lower level. There are about eighty or ninety battle planes in there. Some are singed but they look all right. There’s a lot of tanks and machinery. And there are about fifty of these ore carriers, Lord knows why. Bunch of shop and storehouse material. Looks like they shipped a lot of bauxite from here. No live Psychlos.”

Jonnie made up his mind. He went to his plane and put the radio on planetary. He called the American base—Dunneldeen.

Jonnie remembered Dunneldeen’s joke. “You didn’t know I had fifteen daughters. It’s quite urgent they wed.”

“Got it,” said Dunneldeen and broke the connection.

Jonnie knew he would have fifteen pilots—even though not all were graduated—within the next ten or twelve hours. Dunneldeen knew where he was.

The reception had gotten going now. People were over their shock. They were serving food. They were smiling as they passed him. More bows.

Two escort planes were aloft. Jonnie’s and the third plane were ready to scramble.

Evening had come and they had found enough wood to make a fire. But an enemy would show on a viewscreen up in the sky.

They made speeches. They were grateful to Jonnie many times and he was a welcome guest. Then it was Jonnie’s turn.

He was flanked by a coordinator who knew Chinese and a monk who also knew Sherpa. Jonnie had to speak in English for the Chinese-speaking coordinator and in Psychlo for the monk, and the monk had to translate into Sherpa or Tibetan or whatever it was so it took a bit of time waiting. But not too much.

After some pleasant responses to their speeches, Jonnie got right down to it. “I can’t leave you here,” he said and pointed at the sky. “And you can’t leave any you have left at home.”

Oh, they surely agreed with that!

Jonnie looked at their firelit faces as they sat in their different groups. “It is cold in these mountains.” They certainly agreed with that, particularly the Chinese. “There apparently isn’t much food.” Oh, he was so very right; Lord Jonnie was very perceptive and he knew how thin their children were. “There are ways you can help. Ways you can help to defeat the Psychlos, possibly forever, if they come back. Ways you can help defeat the aliens in the sky.”

One could have heard a snowflake fall, it was so still. He thought they hadn’t understood him. He opened his mouth to repeat. And this orderly throng became totally disorderly. Forgotten were manners. They surged forward; they pressed so tightly close to him he had to stand up.

Only one eager question was being roared at him now in at least three tongues. “How? How can we help?”

These beaten people, these ragged, starved remnants of once-great nations had not really dreamed they could be of value. That they could assist. That they might have a role to play besides to hide and starve. It was a mind-shattering thought. To help.

The coordinators and chiefs somehow got them back in their places around the fire but they couldn’t sit down. They were too excited.

When Jonnie could speak again, it was into a new stillness. But he suddenly realized he might have more audience than he intended. Could the visitors upstairs monitor this? Probably. He held a hurried consultation, low-voiced, with a senior coordinator. Yes, the man whispered back. There was a large hall beneath the palace. It had been cleaned out.

Jonnie spoke to Chief Monk Ananda. Wild-eyed with excitement, the Buddhists went into the hall. Jonnie got a mine light from the plane. He closed the door. This was an atmosphere they loved.

Jonnie spoke to them very quietly. They spoke Psychlo. They spoke Pali, a dead language. They also spoke some tongue known as Tibetan. Yes! they whispered back. Jonnie told them he would see their library was flown out to a safe place. They could have a deep section of the Russian base for it and their temple. But were they afraid of heights? They laughed; that was a silly question to ask mountain people. Did they mind being scattered all over the globe and living with other tribes? No, no. That was fine. They were not really withdrawn from the world just because they lived in a monastery. They had to live in the caves because of danger.

He told them what a communicator was. If people gave them a message in Psychlo, they could put it on the radio in Pali and the Buddhist at the other end could put it back into Psychlo. And the enemies upstairs would never understand. They thought it was marvelous. A whole worldwide Pali-speaking network. Yes, yes, yes!

But now there was a sobering thought. At some time, one of them might be captured and made to give messages. And if so, they would give the message in Tibetan, and that was their secret. It was dangerous.

All life was dangerous. They accepted, every man, woman and child of them, and accepted for the ones at home too! Jonnie tried to tell them their pay would be a credit a day, which was fair pay in most tribes, but he didn’t get a chance. They would go and that was that. And they knew it was secret and they would tell nobody. They even tiptoed out the door.

The next were the Sherpas. There was a lot of hunting to be done; there were even occasional peaks to climb elsewhere. There were huge plains in Russia, teeming with sheep and cattle. There was an awful lot of meat drying and preserving to be done. Could they, all of them, go to Russia and help stock that base with food? Food? They themselves were starving. Yes, indeed, they would hunt and stock the base with food.

Then Chief Chong-won brought in his people. Secrecy was a breath of life to them. Jonnie began by telling them there was a place that was not too healthy, that had a fly that carried a sickness, but proper precautions and nets could handle it. There were also savage beasts, but there would be armed guards and they too could learn to shoot. Insects? Beasts? They didn’t care about those! Where was this place? What did he want them to do? They would leave right away. Was it a far walk?

Jonnie told them they would go by plane. But there was another thing. Although the place was a mile high, it could be hot there.

Hot? A place that was hot? How marvelous! How absolutely marvelous! Who cared how hot?

Jonnie asked them whether they could build things. They proudly told him they had kept up their studies. Some of them were engineers. They could build anything.

Now all this was very secret, said Jonnie, but he had a place near a large power dam that had to be cleared up and cleaned out and the hills dug into and bunkers made. They would get technical assistance. They would even get machines and operators and could themselves learn—

They had eight trainees over in America right now learning about machines! Why were they delaying here talking? Where was this place?

Jonnie told them they would get a credit a day each and bonuses for completions. And they could have land afterward.

Chief Chong-won asked the people whether they agreed. And they thought he was just delaying things. Of course they agreed!

Jonnie returned to the celebration. But it was not a celebration now. Little groups had their heads together working it all out but whispering and in incomprehensible tongues. Jonnie told them good night and they all faced him and bowed and he bowed back.

En route to pass the night in his plane, just in case, he stopped by the ore carrier where the Tolnep lay. He had an impulse to call Half-Captain Rogodeter Snowl and chew on him. But he didn’t. Let the half-captain stew. That was a future battle.

5

In Scotland, Jonnie delayed a meeting with the chiefs as long as he could. He was expecting disks and further progress from America. But Glencannon had not arrived.

Finally, Robert the Fox, who had come up for the meeting from Africa, told him the chiefs were getting restless so Jonnie accompanied him.

The house Chrissie had found was just by Castle Rock and it was only a short walk. They didn’t talk en route, eyeing the overcast sky above them.

Two gillies armed with Lochaber axes and blast rifles let them into the entrance of an underground passage. The chiefs had found the remains of powder magazines and air-raid shelters from some ancient wars and had suspended reconstruction of their parliament house and had refurbished the deep caverns instead. Mine lights burned in niches and cast the shadows of clan banners upon the domed roof.

The chiefs were all there. They had been there for hours. But they gathered around and shook Jonnie’s hand and clapped him on the back. Finally the chief of Clanfearghus brought the meeting to order.

Robert the Fox played them some disks of the radio telescope intercepts. Aside from other items in them, the chiefs were amazed at the dissimilarity of faces in the combined force. They were also very interested in a game these creatures were playing by viewscreen: one of Robert’s prisoners had identified it as “klepp.” Each player had a board of six sides and six different sets of pieces, and when one of them made a move, the other players would make the same move on their boards. The pieces were little spaceships and tanks and marines and soldiers, and they had different movements and were held down magnetically to a board of 616 hexagons. It wasn’t the game that interested the chiefs but the fact that the announced stakes were different items of loot from this planet. It sobered them.

Then Robert told them about infrabeams and that it would be unwise to discuss things out in the open. Sir Robert had gotten a full description of them from a Hockner prisoner. If you had to talk in the open you should turn on an “interference generator,” but they didn’t have those.

The chiefs tried to pass a motion to forbid talking in the open air or telling people things they would then discuss in the open. It was also proposed that they begin a campaign with the slogan “The Enemy Has Long Ears.” But the chief of the Argylls took the floor and informed them that they could not pass legislation affecting all tribes because they were not the government of all tribes—that was located over in America, even though they would be at war with it eventually. What they proposed was usurpation of the powers of state.

This was Jonnie’s cue. He got up and reminded them that the first government actions had been taken by them up in the Highlands, beside the lake and in the meadow, that they were the original legislative body. They must preserve the semblance of a government in America and not act as though that government didn’t exist, for this would ruin his plans. But action must be taken to protect the people of the planet. This ruling body here controlled the World Federation for the Unification of the Human Race. He was sure that body would take their orders and ignore those from America. They could call their orders “Federation Orders” and they would be international in effect.

“Hear, hear!” said Sir Andrew MacNulty, head of the Federation.

Dunneldeen, continued Jonnie, was a titular prince of Scotland, named, he thought, after this very Rock, Dunedin. He controlled the pilots or could control them—

“Dunneldeen and you control the pilots,” the chief of the Campbells corrected him.

Jonnie told them that this legislative body controlled the pilots. And the war chief of Scotland controlled all effective troops—omitting only the Brigantes. So in actual truth, it was this body that controlled the planet. If his argument prevailed with them they should pass confidential resolutions to this effect and then make dispositions as they saw fit.

They discussed it a bit and then so resolved it. Sir Andrew MacNulty was to carry out their wishes with the tribes, Sir Robert was to execute their directives in the military sector. And due to the peculiarities of the situation, orders from the American governing body were to be ignored without creating suspicion. The American body had supported enemies of Scotland, enemies with whom Scotland had a blood feud. The present emergency required emergency actions.

It was what Jonnie wanted.

Sir Robert then got up and described the spread-out character of the few people remaining on the planet and put forth the principle that one must collect the population into a minimum number of strong points that could be defended. He had a plan that would do this.

They wanted a summary of the situation as the MacTyler saw it. Since the MacTyler was part of and a member of every clan and for innumerable other reasons, his estimate would be valued.

Jonnie privately had hoped to have further word from America before meeting such a question. So much depended on what Terl was doing, and there seemed to be a long blank period in which he had heard nothing. He was not going to give some of the data he needed to this body anyway, for he wanted no chance of leaks. But this body had quite a role to play.

He rose and told them (a) they did not know for certain what had happened to Psychlo and there was some possibility of a counterattack; (b) the visitors were a heavy threat—he did not know why they were holding off and it was worrisome, but they were buying time with it and must be ready and should work fast; and (c) the primary concern was the preservation of the people of Earth—they were not just endangered as a race; they could quite abruptly become extinct.

They thanked him and passed Sir Robert’s plan. They were very sober.

There was other business.

They called in Dr. Allen who was deeply involved with Federation tribal movements. In his opinion it was a danger to combine tribes and bring them too close together, due to the fact that their immunities to various diseases might have diminished. The tribes had long been separated from one another and epidemics of smallpox or typhoid fever and other diseases could occur. He had several assistants. He had been flying about doing what he could. He had read all available man-texts on vaccination, inoculation, sanitation, insect control and such matters, and they had prepared serums. He wanted two measures: the first was compulsory isolation of every person who seemed to have signs of illness; the second was compulsory inoculation and vaccination. He was getting excellent cooperation from coordinators and tribal chiefs but he wanted his program made official.

The chiefs passed it as a Federation Directive with their approval, and the order was to be issued by Sir Andrew MacNulty.

Then MacAdam of the Planetary Bank was ushered in. He had requested an audience with the chiefs for three reasons. Short and gray-haired and conservative, MacAdam was very courteous to them and very precise. He had a portfolio of papers and he put it down on the table.

To begin with, that government in America was throwing money around and creating local inflation which could then spread to other areas; the Brigante troops were being paid a hundred credits a day, each one; there were supposed to be about 760 of them and this made seventy-six thousand credits a day which was about double the yearly budget of most other tribes; they didn’t value the money, threw it around in the streets; there was not much to buy in America now, and no product to absorb the funds. He was not there without a solution: he wanted authority from somewhere to issue a special American bank note which could then devaluate against the currency of the rest of the world. He had reason to believe the government there would accept it, if the issue omitted the picture of Tyler and replaced it with one of Brown Limper Staffor for that issue. The caption would be “Brown Limper Staffor, Senior Mayor Planet Earth.” In his opinion the omission of the Tyler picture would also cause the currency to further deflate in value, but he didn’t think Tyler should be on a devalued issue. What did they think?

Tyler smiled. The chiefs laughed and gave MacAdam their blessing.

MacAdam wanted more than that. He wanted a second charter, much like the first, but from this body. It wouldn’t be publicly displayed, but he wanted it in his safe.

They read it and passed it.

Then MacAdam objected to some private, preliminary discussions he had had with Sir Robert to the effect that he should move his bank from Zurich to Luxembourg. It was inconvenient and difficult. They would also have to move presses and find staff housing in Luxembourg.

The chiefs called on Sir Robert. He told them that there was a Psychlo minesite at Luxembourg where the Psychlos had gotten their local planetary iron supplies. Close by it was a fortress from ancient times; in fact Luxembourg meant “little fortress”; it had been a crossroads of banking and trade for a couple of thousand years. It was a temporary measure. Luxembourg could be defended. Zurich could not be.

They told MacAdam he better move.

MacAdam resignedly said he would. But he had another matter and that was the expenses of war preparation. Certain costs were being incurred that were not covered by tribal budgets or guaranteed by tribal lands. He had a solution to it which was to make loans against something else.

Jonnie asked to speak. He said he knew of quite a few mineral deposits (he did not say how he knew), and once things were calm again, they could be mined. They were quite extensive. They knew his earlier connection with mining and should be able to take his word for it. These could serve as a loan guarantee if held as property of the chiefs and not of tribes.

MacAdam said did they know Brown Limper claimed to own the whole planet? The chiefs said they knew of that. Also that he claimed to own the whole Earth branch of Intergalactic Mining?

The chief of Clanfearghus said that valid or not, part of such deeds belonged to them, and they would pledge their share of these mineral deposits to guarantee the war expenses.

MacAdam had a quiet smile. He knew which way the wind blew. He accepted that. He would not violate their confidence.

The chiefs passed a resolution to that effect and gave Sir Robert the right to draw against this open account at his discretion as a “war chest.”

Much later, it was a very sober group that broke up.

Gillies escorted Jonnie to his door.

Chrissie was up and waiting for him and served him some tea and what she said were “crumpets.”

Legs stretched out, shirt thongs unlaced, feet in soft moccasins, Jonnie sat in the drawing room. He was worried about events in America, but he forced his attention onto domestic things.

Chrissie was telling him that the parson and Aunt Ellen would be here for lunch tomorrow and she hoped he would be at home. Aunt Ellen was doing so well here in Scotland—her cheeks had filled out and she had lost a cough she had had. She was looking quite young, really.

Jonnie said you could say that about Chrissie. She looked very pretty with her long corn-silk hair piled up on top in a big puff; her eyes were brighter and blacker; her tunic cloth that had been made into a gown set off her figure even better than buckskin. The collar scars had almost vanished. Chrissie blushed over the compliments he gave her.

Pattie was better. She had gotten terribly thin. She was still in bed from her fever but it had subsided, leaving her weak. Jonnie should visit her in the morning. The only worry was that Pattie did not seem to take any interest in anything. Maybe Jonnie could tell her a story about something.

Jonnie asked whether the house had a basement and she said yes, a strong deep one. Jonnie told her she had found some very nice furniture and if things got rough she should put the better pieces in the basement, well protected. And did she have a safe place in the underground shelters at Castle Rock? Chrissie said she had thought of all that and he mustn’t worry about her. She had been around in the world now and had her share of experience. And wouldn’t he like some more of this tea? And another crumpet?

He found it all very pleasant. It was a lovely old house, so different from those decayed ruins in the old village. If they could just win through somehow, and if his luck held, maybe someday the rather remarkably pleasant fact of sitting in this drawing room and talking about calm matters with Chrissie or friends would become routine.

Then the gong at the door was struck and Chrissie went to open it.

With a shout, Jonnie jumped up to greet Glencannon.