Part 29

1

The next two days were the most horrible in Jonnie’s life—cage, drone and all!

Stormalong had simply flown into thin air and vanished.

He didn’t answer on radio even when Jonnie said his name in clear.

The bank office in Luxembourg was open and answering, but there was just a girl there, and she didn’t speak any tongue anyone at Kariba could speak—French?—and even though they said “MacAdam” and she tried to tell them something back, they couldn’t make it out.

Jonnie could not leave here.

The emissaries in the conference room would go in and out. They were working on and on with the trial. They didn’t pay much attention to him.

Jonnie slept in the ops room and only got out when Chief Chong-won would spell him for a few minutes by standing in, in case anything urgent came through.

Truth told, there was not too much coming through that Jonnie had to handle. Even had he gotten urgent requests, he couldn’t have done anything about them, for he had no available pilots, troops or defense forces. He was actually the only one defending the planet. The woman, Tinny, was lots of help, but there was a limit to the number of hours anyone could stay awake, even a Buddhist nun.

Angus was spending some time with the transshipment rig. He had left the gyrocage on a Tolnep mountain to learn the full fate of the moon Asart. “I wanted to see whether there were earthquakes on Tolnep,” he told Jonnie. “When you change mass in a system, you could expect changes in gravitational stresses. I read someplace that if our own moon got knocked out into space or something, it would cause earthquakes here. But Tolnep didn’t shake up our gyrocage.”

A few hours later, Jonnie had heard a motor running in the bowl and, edgy, had gone out to check. Angus was running a blade scraper. He was pushing a huge piece of the capital ship through the under-cable entrance; it was a piece that had hit the shore. Chief Chong-won was very sharp with him, for it was scraping up the pavement and Chief Chong-won had no men to repair the scars.

Angus said something about wanting to see whether the ultimate bomb were still active.

“Well, don’t bring anything back here that touches that area,” said Jonnie and went back in to answer a radio query.

The next morning Angus had come in to eat a bowl of noodles with him and tell him about it.

“I put that scrap metal way out beyond Asart,” said Angus. “I thought it would fall through the gas—”

“What gas?” said Jonnie.

“Oh, Asart just seems to be gas now,” said Angus. “Just a huge cloud of gas. It was blackish for a while, but then it cleared up. You can see it is a cloud of gas, but you can see through it. It’s pretty obvious now why the Psychlos never used that bomb. As mining people they needed metal, not gas!”

“So what happened to the scrap iron?” asked Jonnie.

“I thought it would fall through the gas and go on down and hit the surface of Tolnep. It didn’t. It fell all right, but it just went to the center of the gas cloud and it’s still there. Want to see a picture of it?”

“Just don’t fire into that cloud and bring any of that stuff back here on recoil!” said Jonnie.

“Oh, I won’t,” promised Angus. “But what I believe is, once that ultimate bomb converted everything to gas, it went null. It doesn’t have anything to work on and the reaction isn’t self-starting again once it’s complete. The metal trace says that it’s all very low-order gases now. Hydrogen.”

“Then the ultimate bomb brings about low-order fission,” said Jonnie. “It stimulates a split of the atoms of heavier metals. I’m no expert, but that’s what it seems you’re describing.”

“Anyway,” said Angus, “all I’m trying to tell you is that the mass of the moon didn’t change, so far as gravitic influence is concerned. In that coldness, the resulting gas has kind of gone liquid and the moon is a sort of bubble with a much bigger diameter. I think you could fly through it.”

“Great,” said Jonnie. “Don’t.”

Angus finished up his noodles. “I just thought you’d like to know that destroying that moon won’t upset our coordinate tables. A shift of mass could throw every coordinate out eventually.”

“Ah,” said Jonnie. “You do have a point! That was clever of you.”

Angus thought so, too.

But news from other areas was not so encouraging. It was not that anything bad was adding up. It was just the nonexistence of news so far as the fate of Chrissie and the people in Scotland was concerned, and the fate of his people in the Russian base.

They had found the chief of Clanfearghus outside, very close to death, and after emergency transfusions had rushed him up to the old underground hospital in Aberdeen. There was not much hope.

They had drilled holes through rubble that blocked the tunnels and they hoped they had gotten air hoses into the shelters. There were rumors they had heard voices, but there had been no mine radios in those shelter areas to begin with, and you couldn’t tell much while trying to shout down an air hose, pumps running and all.

The city was just towers of smoke, as was Castle Rock.

They were having a terrible time trying to open the approach tunnels, working around the clock.

The Russian base news was not much better. They had put the surface coal fires out, but the mine was burning underground, and they did not know whether it was reaching the actual levels of the base. The huge doors were so warped they could not be opened even with burning torches, and they were now driving in a brand-new entrance to bypass them, a drift through solid rock, working over ground that was still burning under them down deep. The ventilator shafts were too tortuous and too barred with armor and filter to be of any use.

To add to the tension in Kariba, the original small gray man, Dries Gloton, had vanished. The one antiaircraft gunner on duty said that the man had simply come out about dawn, ordered a new set of signal lights and radio beacon signals near where his ship was parked, and sailed off, wham, into the sky, and they couldn’t even track where he had gone to. The lights were out there now, two reds flashing, and the radio beacon was telling all ships to stay clear from a conference area.

Lord Voraz, when asked, had shrugged and said it probably came under the heading of prerogatives of a branch manager and was probably bank business, and he had gone on eating the perpetual bites-between-meals the cook served him up. He was no help.

But what gave Jonnie a shock in those two days was the sudden arrival of Captain Rogodeter Snowl.

The conference had called him in as a witness, and they didn’t tell Jonnie and didn’t tell the antiaircraft gunner.

The first Jonnie knew of it was the antiaircraft gun going off.

Lord Dom came rolling into operations like a liquid jelly fish, roaring and rumbling to cease fire!

Jonnie got the gunner to quit. Fortunately, it had been at very extreme range and Angus had not been using the rig. But Rogodeter Snowl, omitting to ask permission to land a small launchcraft, almost got himself shot down.

“He’s been called as a witness!” shouted Lord Dom. “Don’t you know there’s a trial going on?”

Trial or no trial, Jonnie stuck a Smith and Wesson with thermit bullets in his belt and plugs in his ears and went out to personally con the launchcraft down with a hand radio, and make sure the Tolnep remained blind to their defenselessness.

Suppressing an urge to shoot Rogodeter on sight, he limited himself to confiscating his vision filter, making sure the Tolnep had no spare, and personally escorting him to the conference room. He left the Tolnep there, but told them that when they were through with him, they better call ops to escort him out because Rogodeter was going to be stone blind all the time he was around Kariba.

About five hours later they did call him again and he collected Rogodeter and guided him out to the launchcraft. But before he gave him back the filter faceplate, he had Chief Chong-won smear the inside of the launchcraft dome with black water ink. Whether Rogodeter complained or not that he would have to wipe holes in it somehow to find his orbiting ship was unknown to Jonnie: he still had his earplugs in.

Jonnie gave Rogodeter back the filter for his eyes, and from the look of his mouth, the Tolnep, staring at him, said “You!”

So Jonnie said, “Me. And just as a personal goodbye, the next time I see you on this planet’s surface, you won’t like it at all. So get the hell out of here!” And slammed the canopy down on him.

When the launchcraft was gone, Jonnie took the earplugs out and found that the single antiaircraft gunner had been begging him for ten minutes for permission to “accidentally” shoot the ship down. Jonnie sympathized with him. He felt the same way himself.

And still not a whisper from Stormalong. And not a bit of sense from Luxembourg.

No word of Chrissie. No word of his village people. No word of his friends.

It was a horrible two days.

Inaction, he was finding, was a far, far heavier load than the whirlwind existence to which he was accustomed. He was nearing a breaking point of apprehension for the people and planet he had fought so long to save.

At eight that night, it didn’t make things any better to be stopped by Lord Voraz who offered him a job at fifty thousand credits a year to come to the Gredides System and make teleportation consoles for the bank for the rest of his life. Jonnie had to walk away quickly to keep from becoming violent.

A very horrible two days!

2

Things began to change the following day.

Jonnie had spent the night in ops and was sprawled over a table when Lord Dom came in to wake him.

“In two hours,” said Lord Dom, “the trial findings will be read and voted upon.”

“I’m not a member of the government,” said Jonnie.

“We know that,” said Lord Dom. “But you are personally concerned and should be present. Reparations will also be announced. So be there!”

Ah, reparations. A sudden surge of hope. Would they be enough to cover this debt to the Galactic Bank? Or at least enough to make arrangements or first payments or something?

Tinny had had as good a night’s sleep as one could get in a chair, there was very little traffic, and so Jonnie asked Chong-won to stand in for him and went to get dressed.

Mr. Tsung was wearing a little round black-satin pillbox cap with a blue button on the top of it and had not ceased grinning since he had recovered his rank. He bowed and got a bath wheeled in on a mine cart and generally worked to get Jonnie dressed and fed.

Then Mr. Tsung picked up a little thin box on a silk neck cord and put it on and whispered at it, and Jonnie was startled to hear English coming out of it in a flat, electronic monotone.

In response to Jonnie’s raised eyebrows, using the box, Mr. Tsung explained it was a gift from the small gray man, Dries Gloton, before he had left on a trip. A gift for starting a bank account! It seemed that Mr. Tsung’s daughter was painting tigers and birds on big sheets of handmade rice paper and selling them to the emissaries for fifty credits apiece; the lords said they were “primitives” and collector’s items. And his son-in-law had been making pictures of dragons on round metal plates with a molecular sprayer and selling those to the lords for a hundred credits each, and like a good father, even though he despised merchants and the merchant class, he was taking care of their money for them.

Mr. Tsung explained that His Excellency had found the language “court Mandarin Chinese” in his library on the ship and had done the necessary microcopy of it and—you see this little switch here? That’s Mandarin to English in the up position, Mandarin to Psychlo in the middle position, and English to Psychlo in the down position. And didn’t it sound funny when it turned English into Chinese tones?

But that was not all: it was a vocoreader. See this little light on the end? You passed that over Mandarin characters and it read them aloud in English or Psychlo. And it also read Psychlo and English in Mandarin. So now he couldn’t be fooled or led into mistakes by wrongly worded speeches.

It ran on body heat so it didn’t need any batteries and now he could talk straight to Jonnie! Of course, he’d still learn the languages himself, for he didn’t want to sound so monotone. But wasn’t Dries Gloton a nice man!

He was glad Mr. Tsung could now talk to him without a coordinator, but all the same, it made Jonnie feel surrounded by the Galactic Bank.

Mr. Tsung put it to work right away. “I am told you are going in to hear the sentence and that it somehow includes you. Now since you don’t know whether you are going to be found guilty or not, you just sit respectfully and listen, and if they ask you anything, you just bow—you don’t answer. Just bow. That is how you open the way to demand a new trial.”

It was good advice, but it did not do much to calm Jonnie’s nerves.

Chief Chong-won said the radio was quiet. No, no news of Stormalong, nor Edinburgh nor Russia.

The lords were all assembled. They had rearranged the room. They had a high desk on the platform and Lord Fowljopan was sitting at it. The lords themselves were in orderly rows facing it. Down the side of the room was a line of chairs. Schleim was lying on a mine cart, totally wrapped up in hoist chains, with only his face showing above the links. They had him between the desk and the audience.

Lord Dom indicated that Jonnie should sit on one of the side chairs where Lord Voraz was sitting. It was obvious to Jonnie that they didn’t consider him part of their deliberations. The lords didn’t even look at him. But at least he wasn’t there alongside that mine cart with Schleim!

“They have already discussed all this,” whispered Lord Voraz to Jonnie. “But they have to review and vote on each finding. It’s really more of a treaty than a trial. I’m surprised the Earth emissary isn’t here. But they can proceed without him right up to the signing.”

Lord Fowljopan signaled Lord Browl to call the session to order, which he did.

“We have already agreed upon and committed to treaty form,” said Fowljopan, “the redefinition of the word ‘pirate.’ I wish to call to your attention, however, that the redefinition can have no bearing on the present findings for it was passed upon after the incident under trial. Is that correct, my lords?”

They signified that it was.

“Therefore,” said Fowljopan, “we are basing this trial on existing findings and clauses. Testimony of Captain Rogodeter Snowl has been heard and duly entered in the record to the effect that he was ordered to disregard the sanctity of the conference area by the Tolnep then-emissary Schleim. I believe it is the desire of this conference to accept the testimony and evidences of the said Snowl, particularly in the light of the fact that he considered he was bound to protect the Tolnep emissary. This absolves Snowl. Do you so vote?”

The lords so voted.

“Therefore,” said Fowljopan, “it is considered established by this conference that the said Tolnep emissary, by name Lord Schleim, did willfully and maliciously order the military forces of Tolnep to attack the conference area. Do you so find?”

They voted unanimously that they so found and Schleim in his chains hissed and spat.

“It was further witnessed and established,” continued Fowljopan, “that the said Tolnep emissary did seek to paralyze, shoot, and otherwise injure other emissaries engaged in their lawful and time-honored duties, contrary to specific clauses numbered here but too numerous to read. Is that your finding?”

They definitely so found and Schleim hissed and spat some more.

“Therefore,” said Fowljopan, “it is adjudicated by this conference, lawfully assembled, by the power of treaty hereby made among planets, that Tolnep shall hereinafter, for a space of one hundred years, be regarded as an outlaw nation! Do you so vote?”

They so voted and with deep scowls of determination.

“All treaties with the planet and nation of Tolnep are canceled herewith,” said Fowljopan. “Do you so vote?”

They so voted.

“All embassies and legations and consulates of the Tolnep planet and nation shall be closed and their diplomats expelled, and for the space of the next hundred years, diplomatic functions in minor matters shall be undertaken by the Hawvins’ embassies, legations and consulates at usual charges. Do you concur?”

They concurred.

“Since the personal safety of the said Schleim was promised by this conference and since it guaranteed to return the said Schleim unharmed to his planet, it is the decision of this conference that the said Schleim be deposited naked and in chains in the public slave market of the city of Creeth, Tolnep, as an expression of disfavor of this conference. Is this your wish?”

It was their wish. Schleim hissed and spat. Jonnie wondered when they were going to get around to “reparations.” It was a thin hope, but it was a hope.

Fowljopan was continuing. “Since Tolnep had the majority of war vessels and since its officer was, according to the testimony of Schleim himself earlier in this conference, the senior and commanding officer of the combined force, it is the finding of this conference that the non-Tolnep nations, which complemented the combined force, are nationally absolved of the offense. But that, as the presence of their forces poses a continued threat in the skies above this conference, this absolution is dependent on the following conditions: (a) that they ensure that the Tolnep fleet deposits any and all prisoners taken unharmed, undamaged, at a spot to be designated by the Earth military commander; (b) that they themselves deposit any prisoners they may have taken, unharmed, undamaged, at the same or similar place; (c) that they then escort, with the use of any military persuasion necessary, the Tolnep fleet back to Tolnep; (d) that they direct the Tolnep fleet to land on the surface of Tolnep, it being known to the conference that the Tolnep fleet cannot, thereafter, take off again, and (e) that they then return to their respective homelands. The forces mandated by this clause are those of the Bolbods, Hawvins, Hockners, Jambitchows and Drawkins, and any and all forces retained by them and any and all forces of any other planet or nation from outside this system. Is it so decreed?”

There was some discussion as to whether the emissaries representing these forces should vote or abstain.

“I suppose,” whispered Voraz, “you can designate a deposit place for the prisoners in the absence of other authority.”

“Yes,” Jonnie whispered back, “but they don’t say what we do with any prisoners we may have of theirs.”

“This isn’t a peace treaty,” whispered Lord Voraz. “This relates to offenses against this conference. I . . . uh . . . put in a word about Earth prisoners. They’re planetary assets, you see. Prisoners you have from the fleet up there would only be mentioned if this were a peace treaty. And I doubt they’d take them back due to possible contamination—you might want to get even through biological warfare. You’re covered since they included ‘unharmed’ and ‘undamaged’ in the clause.”

Assets, thought Jonnie. You’re just concerned about the value of the property you’re trying to repossess. But he didn’t say it. He was glad they’d get any Earth prisoners back.

They had finally decided the emissaries of other combatants had better vote, for it would look better on the record. The conference was then unanimous.

“By conference law,” Fowljopan then said, “mention must be made of personal violence used against a then-emissary, Lord Schleim.”

Lord Voraz touched Jonnie’s knee. “This is you.”

“One designated as Jonnie Goodboy Tyler was seen to throw a cane or scepter at the said Lord Schleim, striking him. It is the wish of this conference to exonerate the said Tyler. Do you so vote?”

They voted to do so and Schleim really spat.

“Now comes the nice part,” whispered Lord Voraz.

“In accordance,” said Fowljopan, “with Clause 103, which covers services in protecting and saving the lives of conference members, for predetermining the intentions of the said Schleim and for disarming him so that his attack was to no avail, one designated as Jonnie Goodboy Tyler is hereby vested with the Order of the Crimson Sash. Is this the wish of the conference?”

There was a spatter of applause, a buzz of comment.

Lord Voraz whispered, “The Empress Beaz of the Chatovarians created that order 83,268 years ago when an attendant saved the life of her lover at a conference. Someone tried to assassinate him and the attendant prevented it, but got a superficial knife slash in the process. Hence ‘Crimson Sash.’” He whisked from his pocket a little book which expanded and he looked up something. “It entitles you to be addressed as ‘Lord’ and it carries with it a pension of two thousand credits a year. We manage the trust fund for it. I must make a note.”

They were still applauding a bit and Lord Browl indicated Jonnie should stand up and bow. Jonnie thought sourly he’d put the sash on Windsplitter. He didn’t want their honors. He sat down. They sure were taking a long time to get around to reparations. Ah, here they were!

Fowljopan was unreeling a long roll of paper with figures on it. “It has also been found that the dignities of the emissaries and their planets have been offended by the unseemly attack or attempted attack upon them by the said Schleim. A fine and reparation in the sum of one trillion Galactic credits is hereby levied upon the planet Tolnep by the conference.”

Fowljopan rattled through the papers. “The emissaries who had ships in the skies at the time of this incident are not to be included as recipients in this indemnity because of a witting or unwitting taint of conspiracy. The sum, as already discussed in previous deliberations, shall be allocated to emissaries in accordance with populations they represent.” He rattled off a lot of figures. “Does the conference so agree?”

They corrected a couple of calculations.

“Earth,” Jonnie whispered to Lord Voraz, “is getting almost nothing!”

“Some of these emissaries have populations of hundreds of billions,” Lord Voraz whispered back. “The Chatovarians have almost thirty-nine trillion beings on their seven hundred planets. What have you got here? Thirty-three thousand?”

The emissaries accepted the amended figures. Jonnie held his breath. Were damages to Earth going to enter in here?

“Any and all financial arrangements to be made in accordance with the practices of the Galactic Bank,” said Fowljopan. He didn’t ask for any agreement on that. Lord Voraz simply nodded.

“This concludes our findings,” said Fowljopan. “Is it the wish of this conference that these be scrolled in finished form, as voted, so that they can be signed and attested?”

Jonnie whispered urgently to Lord Voraz, “Wait. They claimed they burned a lot of cities. There are all sorts of war damages.”

“I tried to get it in; it would have increased the value of the property,” Lord Voraz whispered back, “but this isn’t a peace conference, you know. It’s a trial and treaty about offenses to the conference itself.”

No reparations for Earth? Jonnie felt like jumping up and protesting. If Sir Robert or MacAdam had been here—

“A trillion credits fine,” whispered Lord Voraz, “is stiff. It will crash the whole Tolnep economy. Even if Earth were awarded city damages, Tolnep could never pay them after that huge fine. Be happy about it. You got rid of all the hostile forces.”

And got rid of all challenges to a clear title, thought Jonnie sourly. Now they were wide open to the bank foreclosure with no real money to meet it.

But Fowljopan was coming down on Jonnie. “Your emissary was not here! This is highly irregular. It does not void or change these findings. But if he is not here to sign them, they will not be valid. Your war will go right on. So you better advise your government to get him here quick. These papers will be ready for signature tomorrow afternoon. Are you going to see he is here?”

“I’m not a representative—” began Jonnie.

“You have influence,” said Fowljopan. “Use it! We want to finish up here and go home.”

“You better do as he says,” whispered Lord Voraz.

Jonnie looked up to see Dries Gloton standing at the door. He’d come back!

As Jonnie walked out, Dries asked Lord Voraz, “Is the Earth representative coming?”

Voraz pointed to Jonnie.

“Will you get him here?” Dries Gloton asked Jonnie.

Jonnie said he’d try, and Dries and Lord Voraz looked at each other and grinned.

He was too disheartened about no reparations for Earth to give much thought to them.

3

A few feet from the door of the conference room, Jonnie started to get mad.

War! Any one of those lords in there, or their governments, merely had to say the word and their fleets pranced off to bash somebody’s head in!

And when they’d bashed it in, they could just sail off tra-la, without a thought of what they’d done to people’s homes and lives, and then maybe come back another day to bash some more!

Jonnie took a walk around the causeway of the bowl. It was a sunny noontime and the mine entrance and exhaust fans made a gentle breeze as they changed the air.

The little children lay in the rifle pits, shaded with bits and pieces of cloth. They followed him with their eyes. The dogs whuffed and snuffled at him from the ends of their leashes and, somehow recognizing him as a friend, wagged their tails. The older children, having fed the younger ones, were sitting cross-legged and eating from bowls; they grinned and nodded as he went by.

Jonnie thought, why shouldn’t these children have a chance? Why couldn’t they have a future that was happy and safe?

War! What right did cold, impersonal nations have to murder and rampage, to smash and crush and gut their more helpless, fellow beings?

Call it “national policy,” call it “necessities of state,” call it what you will, it still amounted to an action of the insane.

Psychlo! What right did Psychlo have striking this planet down? Couldn’t they have bought what they wanted? Couldn’t they have come in and said, “We need metal. We will exchange this or that or technology for it.” No, it suited them better to murder and steal it like a thief.

He thought about the time before the visitors came, when first they had been free from the oppressive tyrants. The people had been trying to get on with it, had been happy, had been working with a will. And then the visitors came. And with them the bank.

Organization might be necessary. But it gave no one the right to create a government that was an inhuman, soulless beast!

He thought of Brown Limper and his idiocies in the name of “the state.” Yet Brown Limper had been almost sensible compared to those lords in there.

Jonnie looked at the children. And he made up his mind. Whatever happened, there would be no more war. Not anywhere.

He had been so engrossed in his thoughts that Chief Chong-won had to shake his arm to get his attention.

The chief was jumping up and down and waving at Jonnie to come on and at last practically pushed him into the ops room.

Tinny was beaming! A chatter of Pali was spraying out from around her headphones. She said something into her mike and turned to Jonnie.

“It’s the Scot officer in charge of rescue in Russia!” said Tinny. “They spotted some green smoke coming from a ventilator in puffs. Somebody inside had gotten the armor off the ducts. They’ve got mine-hoist gear going right this minute hauling people out!”

Minute by minute the reports came in. Then Tinny turned to Jonnie: “It’s Colonel Ivan! It’s for you! He says ‘Tell Marshal Jonnie the valiant-Red-Army is still at his command!’”

Jonnie was about to reply. He was finding it hard to talk. But Tinny said, “Here’s another one for Jonnie. He wants to hear your voice!” She pushed the headset at Jonnie.

Security or no security, the voice said, “Jonnie? It’s Tom Smiley Townsen!”

Jonnie couldn’t talk.

“Jonnie, the village people are all okay. Everybody is all right, Jonnie. Jonnie, are you there?”

“Thank God,” Jonnie forced himself to say. “Tell them that for me, Tom. Tell them all. Thank God!”

And he sat down in a chair and wept. He had not realized how worried he had been about them. He had suppressed it with an iron will so that he could work.

The reports were still coming in, and after a while, he got busy. They wanted to know where to go and he in his turn had the glad news for them of the departure of the enemy and the terms, and shouts and cheers began to leak through from the background of the communicator’s voice there.

They had five wounded pilots and a lot of burn cases and they wanted help from Scotland. He learned the old underground hospital in Aberdeen had been set up and he got the badly wounded ones flown through to it and pried a nurse loose in Aberdeen to be flown back to Tashkent to care for the minor burns and injuries.

He had gotten so busy with these problems that he had forgotten all about Sir Robert until Dries Gloton got Chong-won to remind him of it.

Jonnie had been avoiding it a bit. They had not yet succeeded at Castle Rock and he knew that trying to pry Sir Robert loose was going to take some doing. He had even wondered whether he couldn’t get Lord Fowljopan to put off the signing a day. Sir Robert was going to be a handful.

Even so, he put the call out and got busy arranging for all prisoners to be put down at Balmoral Castle about fifty miles to the west of Aberdeen, easily found from the air because of three noticeable peaks nearby, because of a river, and because it itself was a prominent ruin. It was only about fifty miles from Aberdeen on a road that was in fair condition, but Thor said he could pick any up in a marine-attack plane and get them to the hospital at Aberdeen if they needed it. Jonnie gave him some precautions and then went out and got the Hawvin emissary, who seemed to be the contact now with the orbiting fleet, and gave him a trace map so he could transmit it to the Hawvin commander. They said they could do it this afternoon without waiting for the final signatures. Nobody knew how many prisoners there were, but they’d be flown down in different launchcraft. Jonnie left it up to them and to Thor in Scotland.

Doing all that had given him a pretty distinct impression that things were very hectic around Edinburgh, and he was even less inclined to call Sir Robert.

Once more, Dries Gloton got Chong-won to push him. Good Lord, those small gray men were anxious to get Sir Robert here!

He finally persuaded communicators up there in Scotland to track down Sir Robert, and when he finally got him on the radio, every misgiving he had had was fully justified.

“Coom doon there!” Sir Robert had rapped back via communicators. And so far as it could be translated and relayed, he told Jonnie off properly!

Didn’t Jonnie know that there were twenty-one hundred people in the various ancient shelters beneath the Rock—if they were still alive? That heavy bombs had smashed in every possible entrance? They had gotten atmosphere hoses drilled in here and there, but who could talk through those? The Rock cliff sides had been pulverized and shattered so that every time they got a drift going in, they had landslides.

Yes, Dwight was there! Yes, Dwight had gotten tunnel casings from Cornwall and tried to drive them in. Did Jonnie think they were all standing around doing nothing?

It was all right for Jonnie to be sitting around with those la-de-da lords drinking tea. Go right on and drink tea, but let people get on with this, this—

It took Jonnie half an hour to impress on Sir Robert that without his signature, the matter of the “visitors” wouldn’t be ended.

Finally, with considerable blasphemy that the communicators couldn’t handle well in Pali, Sir Robert said he would pry a pilot loose and fly down.

Jonnie sat back, feeling exhausted. He didn’t like to fight with Sir Robert. And he could understand his position completely. His Aunt Ellen was in those closed-off shelters. And Chrissie! It was all he could do himself to sit here handling things when he felt he should be up there, digging with his bare hands if necessary.

The small gray man looked very pleased when Chong-won told him Sir Robert was coming.

4

Out of the night sky from the north, rushing far ahead of its sound, seen at first as just another star, a plane approached Kariba.

The antiaircraft gunner intercom sounded: the plane was friendly and requested permission to land.

Jonnie went to watch it set down. The door opened and somebody jumped out. The face was a white blur in the night. Jonnie peered more closely: bandages—somebody with his face totally bandaged.

A finger pointing at Jonnie’s beard. “The very thing!”

It was Dunneldeen!

They swatted each other happily. Then Dunneldeen pushed Jonnie back into better light and looked at him. “The very thing! Somebody cut your beard half off! And mine’s burned half off! Make an appointment for me with your barber!”

“Did you get shot down?” said Jonnie, looking a little anxiously at the swathe of bandages on his face.

“Now, laddie, don’t be insulting!” said Dunneldeen. “What Bolbod or Drawkin or Hockner could shoot down the ace of all aces? No, Jonnie boy, it was helping fight fire. It’s not too bad a burn, but you know Dr. Allen. Never happy unless he’s swaddled you up like an innocent babe.”

“How is it up there?” said Jonnie.

“Bad. We got the fire out, but that’s all you can say for it. Dwight and Thor are trying to open tunnels but the rock slides. There’s lots of hope but that’s all I can give you. Say, did that small gray man come back here? Is that his ship over there?”

“Was he at Edinburgh?”

“Oh, that he was. Went all around bothering everybody asking questions. Got in everybody’s way. And then he seemed to get what he was looking for and went swooshing up to Aberdeen. Almost got himself shot down! He was looking for the king—you know, chief of Clanfearghus.”

“How is he? The chief?” said Jonnie.

“Well, he’s a bleeder. You know, doesn’t stop bleeding once he’s cut. I’m always telling him to stay out of wars—they’re unhealthy! Anyway, we found him outside and rushed him to the Aberdeen hospital and they gave him transfusions. This small gray man tried to get in to see him and of course the gillies threw him out. But then Dr. Allen got cornered by him. Seems like this guy,” he indicated the ship where the lights were flashing, “has been collecting books and libraries all over the place. He pictographs them. And he got Dr. Allen to tell him what was wrong with the chief, and they looked it up in a lot of old man-books, and Dr. Allen found there was a compound called vitamin K that made blood coagulate and they synthesized some, and what do you know . . . the bleeding stopped! The chief’s recovering. What is this small gray man, a doctor?”

“No,” said Jonnie. “He’s the sector branch manager of the Galactic Bank. I’ll tell you more later, but he was up there making sure this planet had a government!”

“Well, it was a nice thing to do, anyway,” said Dunneldeen.

Jonnie was glad for the chief but he sure was beginning to feel surrounded by the bankers. He didn’t tell Dunneldeen they were about to foreclose on them. “You see Stormalong?”

Dunneldeen shook his head. “Let’s get Sir Robert. He’s dead to the world in the plane.”

And Sir Robert really was dead to the world. Singed and gray-faced where his skin wasn’t blacked with soot, his hands torn, his clothes in burned rags, Sir Robert looked exactly what he was—an old man who had been going through hell for days without rest.

They tried to lift and carry him between them but the old war chief was a very heavy man, especially when dead weight. They got a mine cart and wheeled him into the hospital.

Jonnie got the nurse up and she examined Sir Robert. He was not injured except for his hands. She gave him a shot of B complex and he never stirred at the punch of the needle.

Mr. Tsung and his family were suddenly up and hovering around and they ran off to get things organized. Shortly, they were giving Sir Robert a bath and trimming the burned areas in his beard and hair so they looked more even. They soon had him in a bed. He had never opened his eyes!

Jonnie went back to the hospital where he had left Dunneldeen and found him sitting in a chair sound asleep while the nurse changed his face bandages. The burns were not disfiguring. His beard sure was tattered. Jonnie stopped the nurse from putting on fresh bandages and called Mr. Tsung’s daughter, who came in with her scissors and neatened the Scot by cutting his beard like Jonnie’s.

Jonnie had hoped Dunneldeen could spell him in ops while he went to look for Stormalong. But Dunneldeen was really in no condition to do anything but sleep. Jonnie turned him over to the Tsung family and they gave him a bath and put him to bed.

It must be hell in Edinburgh!

Jonnie got on the radio to Russia. They had had several thousand people stuffed into that old base. Smoke or no smoke, some of them must be functional. There were two hundred fifty Chinese there from North China. There were the Siberians and the Sherpas. Tinny got some of her own messages in: the rest of the monks and the Buddhist library, the Chinese library and such things were safe. She had to run out and tell Chong-won and Mr. Tsung. Late at night it might be in both Tashkent and Edinburgh, but Jonnie started shuffling people.

The most vital question now was: where was Stormalong? Where was MacAdam? The only thing they ever got out of Luxembourg was a girl saying something that sounded like “Je n’ comprempt pas!” and that sure didn’t spell Stormalong or the Scot banker. Was he going to have to handle this foreclosure thing with no help?

5

The treaty signing, Jonnie was told, would be that afternoon.

They came, Lord Dom and Dries Gloton, to the ops room. Dries seemed extraordinarily pleased. “I hear,” he said, “that the Earth representative arrived last night. Be sure he is at the signing.”

Jonnie glanced at his watch. It was midmorning. He went to the room where they had put both the old war chief and Dunneldeen.

Dunneldeen was up and dressed and seemed bright enough for all his bandaged face. Sir Robert was just groggily opening his eyes, so Jonnie took Dunneldeen back to ops.

“I want you to take over this post,” said Jonnie. “I’ll stay for the signing, but right after that I’m getting out of here to search for Stormalong.” He spent some time genning Dunneldeen in and then went back to Sir Robert.

The old Scot was as grumpy as a bear. He was sitting on the edge of bed with nothing much to cover his bony limbs and eating something Chief Chong-won had brought him.

“Treaty signing!” he grumped between bites. “Waste of time. They’ll never keep any treaties. This is a beautiful planet here and they want it! I belong right up in Edinburgh helping dig those poor people out. Oh, you were right, MacTyler, they all should have been at Cornwall!”

Jonnie let him finish his food and then, while he was having some tea, went out and got an atmosphere projector. And although Sir Robert spent much of his time muttering and railing about being absent from Scotland, Jonnie briefed him carefully on events and what they could possibly do. When he had finished, he stood back.

“I’m no diplomat!” said Sir Robert. “I proved that! And I’m no lawyer and I’m no banker! ’Tis a thin chance, but I’ll do what you say.”

That was all Jonnie wanted.

In midafternoon they went to the conference room. Sir Robert was in his regimentals, Jonnie in his helmet and black tunic. Nobody paid them much attention.

The emissaries had drawn up the treaty Jonnie had heard voted and they had it on a big scroll, laid out in such a way that each emissary could walk up to the table where it lay, sign it, affix his seals, get the signature and pattern or print attested by the bank, and then go back to his seat.

It was a sort of parade. Dries Gloton and Fowljopan were the only ones who stood at the table.

Sir Robert sat and fumed about wasting time, but he did so only in a very low voice and only to Jonnie. They signed and signed. It took them almost an hour.

Earth was the last signature, and Sir Robert went up and put down his name, got a match and melted some wax, and then smashed his big seal ring onto it. Dries drew a bank trace around it and held it up.

“I hereby certify,” said Dries, “that the Galactic Bank has attested the authenticity of this Treaty of Kariba, Earth. It is complete. May I suggest that immediate copies of it be transmitted to all ships concerned.” He spread the treaty out, pulled a small picto-tracer from his breast pocket, and scanned it down the scroll.

Jonnie passed it to Dunneldeen in ops for transmission and copies for themselves and all delegates and the bank.

The lord of the Hawvins stood up. “I have received word that all prisoners were put down at the designated place and signed for by the Earth representative there.”

Dries looked at Jonnie. Word had come from Thor in midmorning. There had been seven pilots, three Russian soldiers, two Sherpas and one Scot. Thirteen in all. They had been in fair condition. But since none of these invading ships had the kind of food terrestrials ate, they were suffering badly from starvation and certainly would have died in months-long space travel. They had been rushed to Aberdeen for intravenous feeding and treatment of minor injuries. Thor had had a row with the Hawvin officer in charge of the landing, for one of the pilots remembered another pilot he was sure the Tolneps had picked up. After sending the first group off Thor had stood by, and sure enough, the Tolneps had another pilot, a German. It had taken two hours to get him set down. They swore that was all. Thor had then believed them.

“Our officer attests we have the prisoners back,” said Jonnie.

The emissaries who had ships in orbit then passed their orders to their respective commanders.

There was a wait. Then Dunneldeen came in to report that according to sightings from Russia, the whole flotilla in orbit had flamed up, gotten into formation around the Tolnep vessels, and left. The phenomena of their getting very big and vanishing had been observed. Radio contact was lost.

The whole group went outside and Angus fired a spitting, naked and chained Schleim to the slave market in Creeth.† The emissaries came back to the conference room.

________
†There was a curious aftermath to this treaty. Lord Schleim, arrived back in Tolnep, used the owners of the Creeth newspaper, the leading Tolnep journal Midnight Fang, who were incensed at the loss of their ace reporter, Arsebogger, to conduct a smear campaign on Captain Rogodeter Snowl, blaming him for the entire disaster, Schleim claiming it was Snowl’s “false testimony” which had brought about Schleim’s and Tolnep’s disgrace. Rogodeter Snowl was set upon in the streets of Creeth by a mob which bit him to death. A relative of the slain officer, Agitor Snowl, in his turn blamed Lord Schleim for the attack and murder. He and a group of fleet officers waited until Lord Schleim next addressed the government, and then blew up Schleim and the entire assembled House of Plunder in an incident which became known as “The Great Schleim Plot.” Soon thereafter, its fleet gone and no longer able to engage in the slave trading which had formed the basis of its economy, Tolnep was unable to meet its indemnity payments. Its income tax department, always corrupt, fell behind in its bribe quotas to higher officials and, one by one, seized Tolnep citizens for tax delinquency, had their fangs drawn, sterilized them, and sold them into slavery. The Hawvins eventually bought the planet and completed the extermination and the Tolneps became extinct.
(Excerpted from Galactic Bank, Customer Service Summaries, Vol. 43562789A.)

Sir Robert thought that was all. He was sitting in the front row, grumbling.

Dries Gloton smiled. He walked over to Sir Robert and he drew a thick paper from his pocket.

“My lords,” said Dries to the assemblage, “are witnesses to the fact that there is no further dispute over the ownership of Earth. The government of the planet is intact. The king is recovering. The Earth representative here is legally empowered to act for the government.

“The title to the planet is clear!” he said triumphantly. “Emissary of Earth! I hereby serve you with a notice of delinquency of payments! If, after a discussion, but in no case later than one week, this mortgage remains unhandled or unpaid, it will result in foreclosure on the planet and all its assets and peoples.”

He dropped the paper in Sir Robert’s lap. “Consider yourself legally served with due process!”

Sir Robert sat there, staring at the paper.

Dries Gloton smiled a sharklike smile at Jonnie. “Thank you very much for getting him here and into the open so that he could legally be given this paper. In addition to being branch manager, I also usually act as my own collections department.”

He went over to a chair and picked up a foot-high stack of large booklets. He returned to the platform and addressed the assembled emissaries.

“Honored lords,” said Dries, “the primary business of this conference—to clear the title of Earth—is complete. However, I know each one of you has full authority to acquire territories for your state. There are other means than war.”

The lords shrugged. War was the surer method, said one. The mental health of the people depended upon war, said another. How was a state to demonstrate its power without war? said Browl. The Galactic Bank would have a hard time surviving without making war loans, quipped Dom. Rulers only became famous when they prosecuted war, laughed another. They were all in a jovial mood.

Jonnie listened to all this with a kind of horror. The impersonal cruelty of large government was brought home to him.

“Get on with it, Your Excellency,” chuckled Fowljopan. “We all know what you’re going to say.”

Dries smiled and began to hand out the booklets. “Here are some brochures I made up while waiting for a clear title. You will find data like mass, surface area, weather, numbers of seas, heights of mountains, and you will also find some scenic views. It is a very pretty planet, really. It would support several billion people, providing they could breathe air. But most of you have air-breathing colonies that even now are overcrowded.”

He finished handing the brochures about and the lords began to scan through the colored pictures. “You have collateral and credit and, many of you, cash. It would take a minimum mercenary force to occupy it for, as you know, its defenses are quite antiquated and it has minimum personnel to resist an invasion. Conveyance of title would include all people and assets.

“Therefore, should you care to linger, there will be an auction of this planet as a bank foreclosure and repossession in the next seven days unless suitable arrangements for payments of its debts are made—which hardly seems likely, for they are without other adequate cash or collateral or credit. Thank you, my lords.”

They were all chattering to one another and examining the brochure and seemed quite in a holiday mood. It was obvious they would stay around, even those from distant universes.

Jonnie said to Dries Gloton, “So it was all just a question of money!”

Dries smiled. “We have not the slightest feeling of hostility toward you. Banking is banking and business is business. One must pay one’s obligations. Any child knows that.”

The banker turned to Sir Robert, “Arrange a meeting for negotiations as soon as possible, will you? Then we can get this thing over with and done.”

Sir Robert and Jonnie walked out.

6

There was a lot of activity in the bowl. Chief Chong-won’s tribe of Chinese had, for the most part, been replaced in Edinburgh by the North Chinese Jonnie had sent there from Russia.

The returning people were smudged and singed. Some were in a state of obvious exhaustion that not even rest on the flight from Edinburgh had eased. They rushed gladly to their children, scooping them up, embracing them, throwing questions to the older children. The dogs were straining at their leashes and barking joyously. It was a scene of glad reunion.

Jonnie was glad he had gotten them replaced on the rescue team. They had worked without ceasing and soon would have been unable to carry on. Yet they had worked until they nearly dropped. Watching fathers in happy chattering exchange with their youngsters, watching mothers anxiously verifying whether this or that had been done properly as to feeding and naps, Jonnie thought of those disdainful and arrogant lords and the soulless haughtiness of government. What did they care what happened to people like these? Yes, such governments might go through gestures of justice and perhaps even social work, but they remained cold, hard forces that could disrupt and shatter lives and people without conscience, without a second thought.

Chief Chong-won was getting them organized. He told Jonnie, as he rushed by, that he was moving them all to the old minesite dome that had been cleaned up: it had rooms underground and the armor cable was working there now.

Well! Jonnie was free of the signing conference. Dunneldeen was available to take over.

In ops he asked Dunneldeen, “Any news from Edinburgh come in with this tribe?”

Dunneldeen shook his head.

Jonnie grabbed an air mask and flight jacket. “Then I’m off to find Stormalong!”

He got no further than the exit to the bowl. He collided head on with Stormalong himself.

“Where have you been?” cried Jonnie. “I have called and called and called!”

Stormalong pushed him into a bunker where they could not be overheard. “I have been fighting and flying my goggles off for days!” He looked it. He was gaunt and hollow of eye; his white scarf was dirty, his jacket stained with sweat and grease. He even had a gun burn in his shoulder.

“You’re hurt,” said Jonnie.

“No, no, it’s nothing. A Drawkin officer wouldn’t surrender. I had to chase him with a marine-attack plane! Imagine it, him on foot running up the side of a mountain, Ben Lomond, and me having to stun him, not kill him, just stun him, mind you, with a blast cannon! And then when I landed and got out, he was just playing dead and he shot me and I had to stun him again with a handgun. Oh, laddie, it has been a wild time!”

“What have you been doing?” demanded Jonnie, making no sense of it.

“Catching prisoners! They left marines and pilots scattered around the Singapore site, some wounded, some not. They didn’t bother to pick up their wounded in Russia. Dunneldeen must have shot down thirty enemy planes around Edinburgh and pilots that ejected are scattered to the west and in the Highlands. It takes some doing, let me tell you, to pick them up. They think they’ll be tortured or sprinkled with virus or killed. And they don’t surrender easily!”

“All by yourself?”

“Except for half a dozen bank guards. And they’re French, Jonnie. They’re not soldiers. They can maybe guard a vault or carry valuables—”

“Stormalong, I had radios in all those places! You must have had your set on. People must have seen you!” None of it made any sense to Jonnie.

“It’s MacAdam, Jonnie. He wouldn’t let me answer. And anybody we saw, he told them they mustn’t put on the air they’d seen us. I told him you would be worried. But he said, no, no. Radio silence utterly and absolutely! I am sorry, Jonnie.”

With careful patience, Jonnie said, “Begin at the beginning. Did you deliver the copies of the talk I had with the small gray men?”

Stormalong sank down on an ammunition box. He verified they were out of sight and hearing of everyone. “I got there about dawn and I went right to MacAdam’s bedroom, and when he heard I was from you, he put the whole thing on a projector. Then he called the German and grabbed six bank guards and a whole basketload of Galactic bank notes, and he told a girl in his office not to give out any information at all and we got airborne. He just plain kidnapped me!

“We’ve been to every battleground looking for officers. He had a list of nationalities and he wanted several of each. Jonnie, those French bank guards are no help! I had to do all the flying and fighting. But I did get some rest. Every time we’d collect some officers . . . did you know both he and the German speak excellent Psychlo? I was surprised they’d been studying so hard . . . they’d interrogate them and I’d get a couple of hours of catnap. Then we’d load the prisoners aboard, all tied up . . . the bank guards could sit there with a gun on them . . . and off we’d go to another location.”

“What was he asking them?”

“Oh, I don’t know. He didn’t use torture. Sometimes he handed out a fistful of Galactic bank notes. They talked.”

Jonnie looked out the bunker entrance at the plane. There were the bank guards all right. They were dressed in gray uniforms. But they weren’t pushing prisoners. They were unloading boxes and some Chinese were bringing up some mine carts and rushing loads into the bowl. “I don’t see any prisoners,” said Jonnie.

“Oh, well,” said Stormalong, “we came back to Luxembourg and picked up some boxes and he got a couple more bank guards—Germans this time—and we flew down to the Victoria minesite. I got a pretty good rest there because he spent so much time talking to the captives we already had there. Then we dumped out prisoners and came on and here we are. And that’s the whole thing.”

It was a long way from the whole thing, Jonnie thought. He told Stormalong to go get some food and rest and went out to find the banker.

MacAdam, short and stocky, his black beard flecked with gray, was pointing this way and that and rushing people along. He stopped abruptly when he saw Jonnie and shook his hand vigorously. Then he turned and beckoned another man to come over.

“I don’t believe you ever met Baron von Roth,” said MacAdam, “the other member of the Earth Planetary Bank.”

The German was a huge man, as tall as Jonnie and heavier. He was bluff and hearty, red of face. “Ach, but I am pleased!” he bellowed and promptly gave Jonnie a huge hug.

MacAdam had vanished into the bowl and the German picked up a heavy box and rushed after him.

Jonnie knew something of the German. Although he had made a fortune in dairy and other foodstuffs, he was descended from a family that was supposed to have controlled European banking for centuries before the Psychlo invasion. He looked like a very tough, capable man.

The last of the baggage from the marine-attack plane was being wheeled into the entrance. Jonnie couldn’t figure out what they were up to.

Inside, a crew of Chinese and some bank guards, under the direction of Chong-won, were hanging huge mine tarpaulins all around the pagoda eaves to completely hide the firing platform itself. Some more Chinese were stringing mine cables and hanging tarps on them to make a covered passage from a bunker to the console. They were totally hiding the platform and all operation of it.

MacAdam was talking with Angus, and although they smiled at him when Jonnie came up, MacAdam was very rushed and he said, “Later, later.”

All the baggage had vanished into the covered bunker. The Chinese children and dogs were all gone. Some Chinese were cleaning the bowl up. Some emissaries wandered out and watched what was happening with the tarpaulins and then, showing little curiosity, wandered off showing each other bits and points in the brochure.

Dunneldeen was on the job in the ops room and told Jonnie that he’d talked Stormalong into getting his beard trimmed like “Sir Francis Drake.” No, nothing new from Edinburgh except that the North Chinese now working there were doing fine. Did Jonnie know they were much bigger men? Oh, yes, and Ker and two bank guards were holding blast rifles on fifty new prisoners at Victoria.

Jonnie glanced up at the sky. If worse came to worst, he had his own way to handle this: a way which might make a fatal future but which might have to be done.

He went to his room to get into less spectacular clothes. They had a few short days. But days had a habit of passing awfully fast when you needed them.

The final confrontation, the last battle, was all too near.

7

The fateful moment of the bank meeting arrived.

Five days had passed.

Jonnie sat alone in the small meeting room that had been prepared and waited for the others to arrive.

There was not the slightest doubt in his mind that this was going to be a battle bigger than he had ever fought before.

Being Jonnie, he had been unwilling to simply sit idly by while MacAdam and Baron von Roth prepared.

They had been busy enough. For five days and nights, the hum of the teleportation rig had resounded through the bowl. Things had come and things had gone on the platform behind the tarpaulins.

But they did no talking lest they be overheard and the only words that sounded were, “Motors off!” “No planes approaching!” “Stand by!” and “Fire!” Whenever anyone, especially emissaries or the small gray men, had come near the tarpaulins or the curtained corridor to a bunker, stern bank guards had pushed them back peremptorily. All Jonnie got from MacAdam was “Later. Later!” Not even Angus was talking.

He had gotten an estimate that it would be several days. Mr. Tsung had told Jonnie that the negotiations of finance and banking were very specialized things. He had added one phrase that had stuck in Jonnie’s mind: “The power of money and gold over the souls of men passes all wondering.”

The predawn sky of the day after MacAdam’s arrival had found Jonnie in the air. He had heard of a university outside the ruins of an old city named Salisbury about one hundred seventy-five miles southeast of Kariba. He had tried to get Sir Robert to come along but the old Scot was hanging on to the radio in the ops room, doing what he could for Edinburgh. Instead, Jonnie had taken a couple of Chinese soldiers to shoo off the lions and elephants when they threatened to interrupt his studies.

The university was a ruin but the library could be sorted out amid the dust and debris, the roof and walls having stood. Camped out in the wreckage, Jonnie had pried congealed packs of catalogue cards apart and had pretty well found what he was looking for. It had been a well-endowed library once. It included lots of economics texts, probably because the relatively new nation had had a dreadful economic struggle of it. The texts were in English and they covered the history of economics and banking pretty well.

Mr. Tsung had been absolutely right! It was a highly specialized subject. And when one went wrong, like some nut named Keynes they had all become mad at, it really messed things up. What Jonnie got out of it was that the state was for people. He had suspected that was the way it should be. And individuals worked and made things and exchanged them for other things. And it was easier to do it with money. But money itself could be manipulated. The Chinkos had been great and patient teachers and Jonnie knew how to study. And with a mind like his, he got things as quickly as a traveling shot.

Four of those five days had been spent ears deep in books, nose full of dust, with Chinese guards warning off black mamba snakes and African buffalo.

Sitting there in the meeting room, waiting for the others, he had the satisfaction of knowing that, while he was no expert, he would at least have a grip on what this battle was all about.

Sir Robert came in, grumbling and cross, and took a seat over to the side with Jonnie. Even though the small gray men had indicated it was between Sir Robert and them, the war chief of Scotland knew that claymores and Lochaber axes weren’t going to win this one and as far as he was concerned it was all up to the experts. Basically he was very concerned about Edinburgh. They had gotten food and water through into the various shelters with thin hoses but rock was still crumbling in on their tunnel efforts. They had been driving in huge, heavy pipe casings for days now and the only hope was that they were not crumbling this time.

Dries Gloton and Lord Voraz came in. A table for four had been set in the middle of the room and they took two of the places on one side of it. They were very neatly dressed in gray suits. They had their arms full of papers and attaché cases and they put them down. They looked exactly like hungry sharks.

Neither Jonnie nor Sir Robert had acknowledged their arrival.

“You don’t seem very pleased this morning,” said Lord Voraz.

“We be men of the sword,” said Sir Robert. “We ha’ sma’ truck wi’ the money changers i’ the temple.”

Sir Robert’s sudden use of English caused both small gray men to turn on their vocoders.

“I noticed,” said Dries Gloton, “when I came in that there were half a hundred soldiers in white tunics and red pants all around in the rifle pits in the bowl.”

“An honor guard,” said Sir Robert.

“They had an assortment of weapons,” said Dries. “And one huge fellow certainly looked more like a brigand than an officer in charge of an honor guard.”

“I wouldn’t let Colonel Ivan hear you say that,” said Sir Robert.

“Do you realize,” said Dries Gloton, “that if you killed the emissaries and us, you would become an outlaw nation? They know where we are. You would have a dozen fleets in here smashing you to bits.”

“Better to fight fleets than be a’ cut up with bits o’ paper,” said Sir Robert, gesturing at their piles of it. “There’s na thrat i’ the Roosians if you tell the truth and behave. We ken this be a battle o’ wits and skullduggery. But it’s a battle a’ the same and a bloody one!”

Lord Voraz turned to Jonnie. “Why do you regard us in so hostile a fashion, Sir Lord Jonnie? I assure you we have only the friendliest feelings for you personally. We admire you greatly. You must believe that.” He seemed and probably was sincere.

“But banking is banking,” said Jonnie. “And business is business. Is that it?”

“Of course!” said Lord Voraz. “However, personal regard sometimes enters in. And in your case it most certainly does. I tried several times in the last few days to find you. It is unfortunate that we could not have had our talk before this meeting here. We are actually your personal friends.”

“In what way?” asked Jonnie coolly.

A grizzly bear or an elephant would have backed off when Jonnie sounded like that. But not Lord Voraz. “Do you realize that when a planet is sold, all its people and all its technology are sold with it? Didn’t you read the brochure? You and your immediate associates are exempted in the sale and so is anything you may have developed.”

“How generous,” said Jonnie with cold sarcasm.

“Since we had no chance to talk and the others seem to be late,” said Lord Voraz, “I can tell you now. We have worked out an offer. We will create a technical department in the Galactic Bank and make you the head of it. We will build a fine factory in Snautch—that’s the capital of the system, you know—provide you with everything you need, and give you a lifetime contract. If the figure I already offered seems too low, we can negotiate it. You would not lack for money.”

“And money is everything,” said Jonnie bitingly.

Both bankers were shocked at his tone. “But it is!” cried Lord Voraz. “Everything has a price! Anything can be bought.”

“Things like decency and loyalty can’t be,” said Jonnie.

“Young man,” said Lord Voraz sternly, “you are very talented and have many other fine qualities, I am sure, but there have been some radical omissions in your upbringing!”

“I wouldn’a talk to him like that,” warned Sir Robert.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Lord Voraz. “Forgive me. In my effort to help, I permitted myself to be carried away.”

“That’s better,” growled Sir Robert and loosened his grip on his claymore.

“You see,” said Lord Voraz, “a scientist is supposed to be hired by a company. What he develops belongs to the company. It’s quite disastrous for a scientist to try to go it alone and manage his own developments and affairs. All companies and all banks and certainly all governments agree on this totally. A scientist is supposed to quietly draw his salary, turn over his patents to the company, and go on working. It’s all been arranged that way. Why, if he tried to do anything any other way, he’d spend all his life in law courts. That is how it has been carefully arranged.”

“So the shoes a cobbler makes belong to him,” said Jonnie, “but the developments of a scientist belong to the company or the state. I see. Very plain.”

Lord Voraz overlooked the sarcasm. Or didn’t hear it.

“I am so glad you understand. Money is everything and all things and talent are for sale. And that’s the heart and soul of banking, the very cornerstone of business. A first principle.”

“I thought making a profit was,” said Jonnie.

“Oh, that too, that too,” said Lord Voraz. “So long as it is an honest profit. But believe me, the heart and soul—”

“I’m so glad to know,” said Jonnie, “that banking and business have a heart and soul. I hadn’t been able to detect one thus far.”

“Oh, dear,” said Lord Voraz. “You are being sarcastic.”

“Anything that destroys decent people has no heart and soul,” said Jonnie. “And by that I include banking, business and government. These concerns can only exist if they are for people. If they serve the wants and needs of the ordinary being!”

Lord Voraz looked at him searchingly. He thought for a bit. There was something in what Sir Lord Jonnie was saying. . . . He gave it up. He was a banker.

“Indeed,” said Lord Voraz, “you are a peculiar young man. Perhaps when you get old enough to understand the ways of the world—”

Sir Robert’s tensing was halted by the arrival of MacAdam and Baron von Roth.

“Who’s a peculiar young man?” said Baron von Roth. “Jonnie? Indeed he is. Thank Gott! I see you two were early,” he shot at Dries and Lord Voraz. “Never saw anybody so anxious to collect their pound of flesh! Shall we begin?”