For an instant, he wondered how the small bursting-charge of a 10-mm explosive pistol-bullet could accomplish such havoc, and assumed that the native had been carrying a bomb in his belt. Then another explosion tossed fragmentary corpses nearby, and another and another. Glancing quickly over his shoulder, he saw four combat-cars coming in, firing with 40-mm auto-cannon and 15-mm machine-guns. They swept between the hovels on one side and the warehouses on the other, strafing the mob, darted up to a thousand feet, looped, and came swooping back, and this time there were three long blue-gray troop-carriers behind them.
These landed in the hastily cleared street and began disgorging native Company soldiers—Kragan mercenaries, he noted with satisfaction. They carried a modified version of the regular Terran Federation infantry rifle, stocked and sighted to conform to their physical peculiarities, with long, thorn-like, triangular bayonets. One platoon ran forward, dropped to one knee, and began firing rapidly into what was left of the mob. Four-handed soldiers can deliver a simply astonishing volume of fire, particularly when armed with auto-rifles having twenty-shot drop-out magazines which can be changed with the lower hands without lowering the weapon.
There was a clatter of shod hoofs, and a company of the King of Konkrook’s cavalry came trotting up on their six-legged, lizard-headed, quartz-speckled mounts. Some of these charged into side alleys, joyfully lancing and cutting down fleeing rioters, while others dismounted, three tossing their reins to a fourth, and went to work with their crossbows. Von Schlichten, who ordinarily entertained a dim opinion of the King of Konkrook’s soldiery, admitted, grudgingly, that it was smart work; four hands were a big help in using a crossbow, too.
A Terran captain of native infantry came over, saluting.
“Are you and your people all right, general?” he asked.
Von Schlichten glanced at the front seat of his car, where Harry Quong, a pistol in his right hand, was still talking into the radio-phone, and Hassan Bogdanoff was putting fresh belts into his guns. Then he saw that the Graeco-African brigadier and the Irish-Japanese colonel had gotten the wounded man into the car. The girl, having dropped her bolo, was leaning against the side of the car, one foot heedlessly in what was left of an Ulleran who had gotten smashed under it, weak with nervous reaction.
“We seem to be, Captain Pedolsky. Very smart work; you must have those vehicles of yours on hyperspace-drive.… How is he, colonel?”
“We’d better get him to the hospital, right away,” O’Leary replied. “I think he has a concussion.”
“Harry, call the hospital. Tell them what the score is, and tell them we’re bringing the casualty in to their top landing stage.… Why, we’ll make out very nicely, captain. You’d better stay around with your Kragans and make sure that these geeks of King Jaikark’s don’t let the riot flare up again and get away from them. And don’t let them get the impression that they can maintain order around here without our help; the Company would like to see that attitude discouraged.”
“Yes, sir, I understand.” Captain Pedolsky opened the pouch on his belt and took out the false palate and tongue-clicker without which no Terran could do more than mouth a crude and barely comprehensible pidgin-Ulleran. Stuffing the gadget into his mouth, he turned and began jabbering orders.
Von Schlichten helped the girl into the car, placing her on his right. The wounded civilian was propped up in the left corner of the seat, and Colonel O’Leary and Brigadier-General M’zangwe took the jump-seats. The driver put on the contragravity-field, and the car lifted up.
“Them, see if there’s a flask and a drinking-cup in the door pocket next to you,” he said. “I think Miss Quinton could use a drink.”
The girl turned. Even in her present disheveled condition, she was beautiful—a trifle on the petite side, with black hair and black eyes that quirked up oddly at the outer corners. Her nails were black-lacquered and spotted with little gold stars, evidently a new feminine fad from Terra.
“I certainly could, general.… How did you know my name?”
“You’ve been on Uller for the last three months; ever since the City of Canberra got in from Niflheim. On Uller, there aren’t enough of us that everybody doesn’t know all about everybody else. You’re Dr. Paula Quinton; you’re an extraterrestrial sociographer, and you’re a field-agent for the Extraterrestrials’ Rights Association, like Mohammed Ferriera, here.” He took the cup and flask from Themistocles M’zangwe and poured her a drink. “Take this easy, now; Baldur honey-rum, a hundred and fifty proof.”
He watched her sip the stuff cautiously, cough over the first mouthful, and then get the rest of it down.
“More?” When she shook her head, he stoppered the flask and relieved her of the cup. “What were you doing in that district, anyhow?” he wanted to know. “I’d have thought Mohammed Ferriera would have had more sense than to take you there, or go there, himself, for that matter.”
“We went to visit a friend of his, a native named Keeluk, who seems to be a sort of combination clergyman and labor leader,” she replied. “I’m going to observe labor conditions at the North Pole mines in a short while, and Mr. Keeluk was going to give me letters of introduction to friends of his at Skilk.”
With the aid of his monocle, von Schlichten managed to keep a straight face. Neither M’zangwe nor O’Leary had any such aid; the African rolled his eyes and the Japanese-Irishman grimaced.
“We talked with Mr. Keeluk for a while,” the girl said, “and when we came out, we found that our driver had been killed and a mob had gathered. Of course, we were carrying pistols; they’re part of this survival-kit you make everybody carry, along with the emergency-rations and the water-desilicator. Mr. Ferriera’s wasn’t loaded, but mine was. When they rushed us, I shot a couple of them, and then picked up that big knife.…”
“That’s why you’re still alive,” von Schlichten commented.
“We wouldn’t be if you hadn’t come along,” she told him. “I never in my life saw anything as beautiful as you coming through that mob swinging that war-club!”
“Well, I never saw anything much more beautiful than those 40-mm’s beginning to land in the mob,” von Schlichten replied.
The aircar swung out over Konkrook Channel and headed toward the blue-gray Company buildings on Gongonk Island, and the Company airport, swarming with lorries and airboats, where the ten thousand-ton Oom Paul Kruger had just come in from Keegark, and the Company’s one real warship, the cruiser Procyon, was lifting out for Grank, in the North. Down at the southern tip of the island, the three-thousand-foot globe of the spaceship City of Pretoria, from Niflheim, was loading with cargo for Terra.
“Just what happened, while you and Mr. Ferriera were in Keeluk’s house. Miss Quinton?” Hideyoshi O’Leary asked, trying not to sound official. “Was Keeluk with you all the time? Or did he go out for a while, say fifteen or twenty minutes before you left?”
“Why, yes, he did.” Paula Quinton looked surprised. “How did you guess it? You see, a dog started barking, behind the house, and he excused himself and.…”
“A dog?” von Schlichten almost shouted. The other officers echoed him, and on the front seat, Harry Quong said, “Coo-bli’me!”
“Why, yes.…” Paula Quinton’s eyes widened. “But there are no dogs on Uller, except a few owned by Terrans. And wasn’t there something about…?”
Von Schlichten had the radio-phone and was calling the command car at the scene of the riot. The sergeant-driver answered.
“Von Schlichten here; my compliments to Captain Pedolsky, and tell him he’s to make immediate and thorough search of the house in front of which the incident occurred, and adjoining houses. For his information, that’s Keeluk’s house. Tell him to look for traces of Governor-General Harrington’s collie, or any of the other terrestrial animals that have been disappearing—that goat, for instance, or those rabbits. And I want Keeluk brought in, alive and in condition to be interrogated. I’ll send more troops, or Constabulary, to help you.” He h
anded the phone to M’zangwe. “You take care of that end of it, Them; you know who can be spared.”
“But, what…?” the girl began.
“That’s why you were attacked,” he told her. “Keeluk was afraid to let you get away from there alive to report hearing that dog, so he went out and had a gang of thugs rounded up to kill you.”
“But he was only gone five minutes.”
“In five minutes, I can put all the troops in Konkrook into action. Keeluk doesn’t have radio or TV—we hope—but he has his forces concentrated, and he has a pretty good staff.”
“But Mr. Keeluk’s a friend of ours. He knows what our Association is trying to do for his people.…”
“So he shows his appreciation by setting that mob on you. Look, he has a lot of influence in that section. When you were attacked, why wasn’t he out trying to quiet the mob?”
“When they jumped you, you tried to get back into the house,” M’zangwe put in. “And you found the door barred against you.”
“Yes, but.…” The girl looked troubled; M’zangwe had guessed right. “But what’s all the excitement about the dog? What is it, the sacred totem-animal of the Uller Company?”
“It’s just a big brown collie, named Stalin, like half the dogs on Terra. Somebody stole it, and Keeluk was keeping it, and we want to know why. We don’t like geek mysteries; not when they lead to murderous attacks on Terrans, at least.”
The aircar let down on the hospital landing stage. A stretcher was waiting, with a Terran interne and two Ulleran orderlies. They got the still-unconscious Mohammed Ferriera out of the car.
“You’d better go with them, yourself, Miss Quinton,” von Schlichten advised. “You have a couple of nasty-looking bruises and bumps. A couple of abrasions, too, where those geeks grabbed you; they have hides like sandpaper. And better have that coat cleaned, before that goo on it hardens, or it’ll be ruined.”
“Yes. You have a lot of it on your uniform, too.”
He glanced down at the blue-gray jacket. “So I have. And another thing. Those letters Keeluk was going to give you, the ones to his friends in Skilk. Did you get them?”
She felt in the pocket of her coat. “Yes. I still have them.”
“I wish you’d let Colonel O’Leary have a look at them. There may be more to them than you think.… Hid, will you go with Miss Quinton?”
II.
Rakkeed, Stalin, and the Rev. Keeluk
Von Schlichten, in a fresh uniform, sat at the end of the table in Sidney Harrington’s office; Harrington and Eric Blount, the Lieutenant-Governor, faced each other across it, over the three-foot disc of an Ulleran chess-board. Harrington had the white, or center, position. Blount, sandy-haired and considerably younger, was playing black, and his pieces were closing in relentlessly from the outer rim.
“Well, then what?” Harrington asked.
Von Schlichten dropped ash from his cigarette into the tray that served all three of them.
“Nothing much,” he replied. “Keeluk bugged out as soon as he saw my car let down. We picked up a few of his ragtag-and-bobtail, and they’re being questioned now, but I doubt if they’ll tell us anything we don’t know already. The dog had been kept in a lean-to back of the house; it had been removed, probably as soon as Keeluk called in his goon-gang. At least one of the rabbits had been kept on the premises, too, some time ago. No trace of the goat.”
He watched Blount move one of his pieces and nodded approvingly. “The riot’s been put down,” he continued, “but we’re keeping two companies of Kragans in the city, and about a dozen airjeeps patrolling the section from Eightieth down to Sixty-fourth, and from the waterfront back to Eighth Avenue. There is also the equivalent of a regiment of King Jaikark’s infantry—spearmen, crossbowmen, and a few riflemen—and two of those outsize cavalry companies of his, helping hold the lid down. They’re making mass arrests, indiscriminately. More slaves for Jaikark’s court favorite, of course.”
“Or else Gurgurk wants them to use for patronage,” Blount added. “He’s been building quite a political organization, lately. Getting ready to shove Jaikark off the throne, I’d say.”
Harrington pushed one of his pieces out along a radial line toward the rim. Blount promptly took a pawn, which, under Ulleran rules, entitled him to a second move. He shifted another piece, a sort of combination knight and bishop, to threaten the piece Harrington had moved.
“Oh, Gurgurk wouldn’t dare try anything like that,” the Governor-General said. “He knows we wouldn’t let him get away with it. We have too much of an investment in King Jaikark.”
“Then why’s Gurgurk been supporting this damned Rakkeed?” Blount wanted to know, hastily interposing a piece. “Gurgurk can follow one of two lines of policy. He can undertake to heave Jaikark off the throne and seize power, or he has to support Jaikark on the throne. We’re subsidizing Jaikark. Rakkeed has been preaching this crusade against the Terrans, and against Jaikark, whom we control. Gurgurk has been subsidizing Rakkeed.…”
“You haven’t any proof of that,” Harrington protested.
“My Intelligence Section has,” von Schlichten put in. “We can give sums of money, and dates, and the names of the intermediaries through whom they were paid to Rakkeed. Eric is absolutely correct in making that statement.”
“Personally, I think Gurgurk’s plan is something like this: Rakkeed will stir up anti-Terran sentiment here in Konkrook, and direct it against our puppet, Jaikark, as well as against us,” Blount said. “When the outbreak comes, Jaikark will be killed, and then Gurgurk will step in, seize the Palace, and use the Royal army to put down the revolt that he’s incited in the first place. That will put him in the position of the friend of the Company, and most of his dupes will be rounded up and sold as slaves, and King Gurgurk’ll pocket the proceeds. The only question is, will Rakkeed let himself be used that way? I think Rakkeed’s bigger than Gurgurk ever can be. And more of a threat to the Company. Everywhere we turn, Rakkeed’s at the bottom of whatever happens to be wrong. This business, for instance; Keeluk’s one of Rakkeed’s followers.”
“Eric, you have Rakkeed on the brain!” Harrington exclaimed impatiently, then moved the threatened piece counterclockwise on the circle where he had placed it. “He’s just a barbarian caravan-driver.”
Eric Blount moved the piece that had taken Harrington’s pawn.
“Your king’s in danger,” he warned. “And Hitler was just a paper-hanger.”
“Rakkeed has no following, except among the rabble.” Harrington puffed furiously at his pipe, trying to figure the best protection for his king.
“You just think he hasn’t,” Blount retorted. “Here in Konkrook, he’s always entertained by one or another of the big ship-owning nobles. They probably deprecate his table-manners, but they just love his politics. And the same thing at Keegark, and at the Free Cities along the Eastern Shore.”
“The last time Rakkeed was in Konkrook, he was the guest of the Keegarkan Ambassador,” von Schlichten stated. “Intelligence got that from a spy we’d planted among the embassy servants.”
“You sure this spy wasn’t just romancing?” Harrington asked. “You get so confounded many wild stories about Rakkeed. Three days after he was reported here at Konkrook, he was reported at Skilk, five thousand miles away, said to be having an audience with King Firkked.”
“No mystery to that,” von Schlichten said. “He travels on our ships, in disguise, coolie-class, on the geek-deck.”
“Be a good idea if he could be caught at it, some time,” Blount said, making another move. “One of the lower-deck loading ports could be left unlocked, by carelessness, and he could blunder overboard at about five thousand feet.” He watched Harrington make a deceptively pointless-looking move. “Sid, this damn dog business worries me.”
“Worries me, too. I’m fond of that mutt, and God only knows what sort of stuff he’s been getting to eat. And I hate to think of why those geeks stole him, too.”
“Well
, at risk of seeming heartless, I’m not so much worried for Stalin as I am about why Keeluk was hiding him, and why he was willing to murder the only two Terrans in Konkrook who trust him, to prevent our finding out that he had him.”
“A Mr. Keeluk, a clergyman,” von Schlichten quoted. He chain-lit another cigarette and stubbed out the old one. “Maybe the Rev. Keeluk wanted Stalin for sacramental purposes.”
Blount looked up sharply. “Ritual killing?” he asked. “Or sympathetic magic?”
Von Schlichten shrugged. “Take your choice. Maybe Rakkeed wanted the dog, to kill before a congregation of his followers, killing us by proxy, or in effigy. Or maybe they think we worship Stalin, and getting control of him would give them power over us. I wish we knew a little more about Ulleran psychology.”
That wasn’t the first time he’d made that wish. Even if sex weren’t the paramount psychological factor the ancient Freudians believed, it was an extremely important one, and on Uller most of the fundamental terms of Terran psychology were meaningless. At the same time, the average Ulleran probably had complexes and neuroses that would have had Freud talking to himself, and they certainly indulged in practices that would have even stood Krafft-Ebing’s hair on end.
“One thing,” Blount said. “It doesn’t take any Ulleran psychologist to know that about eighty percent of them hate us poisonously.”
“Oh, rubbish!” Harrington blew the exclamation out around his pipe-stem with a gush of smoke. “A few fanatics hate us, and a few merchants who lost money when we replaced this primitive barter economy of theirs, but nine-tenths of them have benefited enormously from us, and continue to benefit.…”
The H. Beam Piper Megapack Page 38