 INTRODUCTIONS AND PROLOG TO OULER UPRISING. With the publication of this novel, Uller Uprising, all of H. Beam Piper's previously published science fiction is now available in Ace editions. Uller Uprising was first published in 1952 in a twain science fiction triplet, a hardbound collection of three thematically connected novels. The other two were Judith Merrill's Daughters of Earth and Fletcher Pratt's The Long View. A year later it appeared in the February and March issues of space science fiction edited by Lester Del Rey. The magazine version, which was abridged by about a third, was believed by many bibliographers to be the only version, and as a novella it was too short for book publication. The twain version had a small print run and is so scarce that few people have seen it. Those bibliographers who knew of its existence assumed that both versions of Uller were the same. It was through a telephone conversation with Charles N. Brown, publisher of Locusts and correspondent with Piper, that I learned about the twain edition and its greater length. Brown allowed me to photocopy his original, for which we owe him a debt of thanks, because the twain version is not only novel length, but far better than the shorter one that appeared in space science fiction. Probably the most surprising and interesting thing about the twain edition is the essay that forms the introduction to that volume and is reprinted here. The essay is by Dr. John D. Clark, an imminent scientist of the 40s and 50s, and one of the discoverers of Sulfa, the first miracle drug. It describes in great detail the planetary system of the star Beta Hydrae and gives the names of those planets, Uller and Niflheim. A publisher's note states that Clark's essay was written first and given to the contributors as background material for a novel they would then write. The fans of H. Beam Piper seem to owe a great debt to Dr. Clark. Uller Uprising became the foundation of Piper's monumental tarot-human future history, the first story where we encounter the Terran Federation. In it we learn about Odin, the planet that will one day be the capital of the first Galactic Empire, and Humble and Niflheim, which in more decadent times will become a common explity, a word meaning hell. This is also where Piper introduced and explained the atomic era dating system, A.E. Uller Uprising is set in the early years of the Terran Federation's expansion and exploration, an epic of great vitality. In the edge of the knife, Piper compares this time of discovery to the Spanish conquest of the Americas. This feeling of vigor and unlimited possibilities runs through all the early Federation stories, Uller Uprising, Omnelingual, Nonsense, When in the Course, and to a lesser degree in the late Federation novels Little Fuzzy, Fuzzy Sapiens, and Fuzzies and Other People. See Federation by H. Beam Piper for a good overview of this period. In these stories we see tarot-humans at their best and at their worst, individual heroism and bravery in the face of grave danger in Uller Uprising, Federation law and justice in Little Fuzzy and its sequels, and in Omnelingual and Nonsense, the spirit of science and rational inquiry. Yet we also see colonial exploitation and subjugation in Uller Uprising and Umpful in the sky, the greed and corruption of chartered land companies in Little Fuzzy and political corruption in four-day planet. These stories are about a living tarot-human culture, not a utopia. It was Piper's attention to historical realism and his use of actual historical models that have helped his work to pass the test of time and have led to his becoming the favorite of a new generation of readers more than twenty-five years after his death. Uller Uprising is the story of a confrontation between a human overlord and alien servants with an ironic twist at the end. Like most of Piper's best work, Uller Uprising is modeled after an actual event in human history. In this case the Sepoy Mutiny, a Bengal Uprising in British-held India, brought about when rumors were spread to native soldiers that cartridges being issued by the British were coated with animal fat. The rebellion quickly spread throughout India and led to the massacre of the British colony at Kanpur. Piper's novel is not a mere retelling of the Indian mutiny, but rather an analysis of an historical event applied to a similar situation in the far future. Like many philosophers and social theorists before him, Piper attempted to chart the progress of humankind. Unlike most, however, he did not envision or try to create a system of ethics that would end all of humanity's problems. The best he could offer was his model of the self-reliant man, the man who actually knows what has to be done and how to do it, and he's going to go right ahead and do it, without holding a dozen conferences and round-table discussions, and giving everybody a fair and equal chance to foul things up for him. Piper brought his own ideas and judgments about society and history and to all of his work, but they appear most clearly in his tarot-human future history. While not everyone will agree with Piper's theories, they give his work a bite that most popular fiction lacks. One cannot read Piper complacently, and one can often find a rye in sight sandwiched in between the blood and thunder. Other future histories may span more centuries or better illuminate the highlights of several decades, but until a rival is created with more historical depth and attention to detail, H. Beam Piper's tarot-human future history will stand as the bayou tapestry of science fiction histories. In many ways, certainly during his lifetime, Piper was the most underrated of the John W. Campbell's astounding writers. He was probably also the most camelliant. His self-reliant man is almost a mirror image of Campbell's citizen. Piper died a bitter man, a failure in his own mind. Shortly before his death he believed he could no longer earn a living as a writer without charity from his friends or the state. Now he's the cornerstone of ace books. Had he lived long enough to finish another half-dozen books, he would have been among the science fiction greats of the sixties. But maybe he does know, after all, Jerry Pornell, who was very much influenced by Piper, and in many ways considers himself being spiritual descendant, and incidentally was John W. Campbell's last major discovery, has said that sometimes, when he's gotten down a particularly good line, he can hear the old man chuckle and whisper, at a boy. End of introduction number one. Introduction by Dr. John D. Clark. The planet is named Uller. It seems that when interstellar travel was developed the names of Greek gods had been used up, so those of Norse gods were used. It is the second planet of the star Beta Hydrae, right angle 0 colon 23, declension negative 77 colon 32, G0 solar type star of approximately the same size as Sol, distance from Earth 21 light years. Uller revolves around it in a nearly circular orbit at a distance of 100 million miles, making it a little colder than Earth, a year as of the approximate length of that on Earth. A day lasts 26 hours. The axis of Uller is in the same plane as the orbit, so that at a certain time of the year the North Pole is pointed directly at the Sun, while at the opposite end of the orbit it points directly away. The result is highly exaggerated seasons. At the poles the temperature runs from 120 degrees Celsius to a low of minus 80 degrees Celsius. At the equator it remains not far from 10 degrees Celsius all year round. Strong winds blow during the summer and winter from the hot to the cold pole, few winds during the spring and fall. The appearance of the poles varies during the year from baked deserts to glaciers covered with solid CO2. Free water exists in the equatorial regions all year round. 2. Solar movement as seen from Uller. As seen from the North Pole no Sun is visible on January 1. On April 1 it bisects the horizon all day, swinging completely around. April 1 to July 1 it continues swinging around, gradually rising in the sky, the spiral converging to its center at the zenith, which it reaches July 1. From July 1 to October 1 the spiral starts again, spreading out from the center until on October 1 it bisects the horizon again. On October 1 night arrives to stay until April 1. At the equator the Sun is visible bisecting the southern horizon for all 26 hours of the day on January 1. From January 1 to April 1 the Sun starts to dip below the horizon at night to rise higher above it during the day. During all this time it rises and sets at the same hours, but rises in the southeast and sets in the southwest. At noon it is higher each day in the southern sky until April 1, when it rises due east, passes through the zenith and sets due west. From April 1 to July 1 its noon position drops down to the north, until on July 1 it is visible all day bisected by the northern horizon. 3. Chemistry and geology of Uller. Calcium and chlorine are rarer than on earth. Sodium is somewhat commoner. As a result of the shortage of calcium there is a higher ratio of silicates to carbonates than exists on earth. The water is slightly alkaline and resembles a very dilute solution of sodium silicate, water glass. It would have a pH of 8.5 and taste slightly soapy. Also when it dries out it leaves a sticky and then a glassy crackly film. Rocks look fairly earth-like, but the absence or scarcity of anything like limestone is noticeable. Practically all the sedimentary rocks are of the sandstone type. All rivers are seasonal, running from the polar regions to the central seas in the spring only, or until the polar cap is completely dried out. 4. Animal life. As on earth life arose in the primitive waters and with a carbon base, but because of the abundance of silicone there was a strong tendency for the microscopic organisms to develop silicate echoskeletons like diatoms. The present invertebrate animal life of the planet is of this type and is confined to the equatorial seas. They run from amoeba-like objects to things like crayfish with silicate skeletons. Later some species of them started taking silicone into their soft tissues and eventually their carbon chain compounds were converted to silicone type chains from diagram 1 to diagram 2 with organic radicals on the side lengths. These organisms were a transitional type with silicone tissues and water body fluids resembling the earthly amphibians and are now practically extinct. There are a few species, something like segmented worms, still to be seen in the backwaters of the central seas. A further development occurred when the silicone chain animals began to get short-chained silicones into their circulatory systems held in solution by OH or NH2 groups on the ends and branches of the chains. The proportion of these compounds gradually increased until the water was a minor and then a missing constituent. The larger mobile species were then practically anhydrous. Their blood consists of short-chain silicones with quartz reinforcing for the soft parts and their armor, teeth, and etc. of pure amorphous quartz, opal. Most of these parts are of the melky variety, variously tinted with metallic impurities, as are the varieties of sapphires. These pure silicone animals, due to their practical indestructibility, annihilated all but the smaller of the carbon animals and drove the compromised types into odd corners as relics. They developed into a fish-like animal with a very large swim bladder to compensate for the rather higher density of the silicone tissues, and from these fish the land animals developed. Due to their high density and resulting high weight they tend to be low on the ground rather reptilian in look. Three pairs of legs are usual in order to distribute the heavy load. There is no sharp dividing line between the quartz armor and the silicone tissue. One merges into the other. The dominant pure silicone animals only could become mobile and venture far from the temperate equatorial regions of Uler since they neither froze nor stiffened with cold, nor became incapacitated by heat. Note that all animal life is cold-blooded with a negligible difference between body and ambient temperatures. Since the animals are silicones they don't get sluggish like cold snakes. 5. Plant Life The plants are of the carbon metabolism, silicate shell type, like the primitive animals. They spread out from the equator as far as they could go before the baking polar summers killed them. They have normal seasonal growth in the temperate zones and remain dormant and frozen in the winter. At the poles there is no vegetation, not because of the cold winter but because of the hot summer. The winter winds frequently blow over dead trees and roll them as far as the equatorial seas. Other dead vegetation because of the highly salacious water always gets petrified unless it is eaten first. What with the quartz speckled hides of the living vegetation and the solid quartz of the dead, a forest is spectacular. The silicone animals live on the plants. They chew them up, dehydrate them, and convert their salacious outer bark and carbonaceous interiors into silicones for themselves. When silicone tissue is metabolized the carbon and hydrogen go to CO2 and H2O which are bred out while the silicone goes into SiO2 which is deposited as more teeth and armor. Compare the terrestrial octopus which makes armor plating out of calcium urate instead of excreting urea or uric acid. The animals can of course eat each other too or make a meal of the small carbonaceous animals of the equatorial seas. Further note that the animals cannot digest plants when they are cold. They can eat them and store them but the disposal of the solid water and CO2 is too difficult a problem. When they warm up the water in the plants melts and can be disposed of and things are simpler. Part two, the fluorine planet. One, the star and planet. The planet named Niflheim is the fourth planet of new pupus, right angle 6 colon 36 declension negative 43 colon 09 B8 type star blue white and hot 148 light years distant from Earth which will require a speed in excess of light to reach it. Niflheim is 462 million miles from its primary a little less than the distance of Jupiter from our sun. It thus does not receive too great a total amount of energy but what it does receive is of high potential. A large fraction of it being in the ultraviolet and higher frequencies. Watch out for really super special sunburn and so on on unworn personnel. The gravity of Niflheim is approximately 1g. The atmospheric pressure approximately one atmosphere and the average ambient temperature about minus 60 degrees Celsius minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit. Two, atmosphere. The oxidizer in the atmosphere is free fluorine F2 in a rather low concentration about four or five percent. With it appears a mad collection of gases. There are a few inert diluents such as N2 nitrogen, argon, helium, neon and so on. But the major fraction consists of CF4 carbon tetrafluoride, BF3 boron trifluoride, SIF4 silicon tetrafluoride, PF5 phosphorus pentafluoride, SF6 sulfur hexafluoride and probably others. In other words the fluorides of all the non-metals that can form fluorides. The phosphorus pentafluoride rains out when the weather gets cold. There is also free oxygen but no chlorine. That would be liquid except in very hot weather. It sometimes appears combined with fluorine in chlorine trifluoride. The atmosphere has a slight yellowish tinge. Three, soil and geology. Above the metallic core of the planet the lithosphere consists exclusively of fluorides of the metals. There are no oxides, sulfides, silicates or chlorides. There are small deposits of such things as bromine trifluoride but these have no great importance. Since fluorides are weak mechanically the terrain is flat-ish. Nothing tough like granite to build mountains out of. Since the fluoride ion is colorless the color of the soil depends upon the predominant metal in the region. As most of the light metals also have colorless ions the colored rocks are rather rare. Four, the waters under the earth. They consist of liquid hydrofluoric acid HF. It melts at minus 83 degrees celsius and boils at 19.4 degrees celsius. In it are dissolved varying quantities of metallic and non-metallic fluorides such as boron trifluoride, sodium fluoride and etc. When the oceans and lakes freeze they do so from the bottom up so there is no layer of ice over free liquid. Five, plants and plant metabolism. The plants function by photosynthesis taking HF as water from the soil and carbon tetrafluoride as the equivalent of carbon dioxide from the air to produce chain compounds such as this diagram and at the same time liberating free fluorine. This reaction could only take place on a planet receiving lots of ultraviolet because so much energy is needed to break up carbon tetrafluoride and hydrofluoric acid. The plant catalyst doubling for the magnesium in chlorophyll is nickel. The plants are colored in various ways. They get their metals from the soil. Six, animals and animal metabolism. Animals depend upon two main reactions for their energy and for the construction of harder tissues. The soft tissues are about the same as the plant molecules but the hard tissues are produced by the reaction shown in these two diagrams. Resulting in a teflon boned and shelled organism. He's going to be tough to do much with. Diatoms leave straight out of powdered teflon. The main energy reaction is shown in this diagram. The blood catalyst metal is titanium which results in colorless arterial blood and violet venous as the titanium flips back and forth between tri and tetravalent states. Seven, effect on intruding items. Water decomposes into oxygen and hydrofluoric acid. All organic matter, earth type, converts into oxygen, carbon tetrafluoride, hydrofluoric acid, and et cetera with more or less speed. A rubber gas mask lasts about an hour. Glass first frosts and then disappears. Plastics act like rubber only a little slower. The heavy metals iron, nickel, copper, monel, and et cetera stand up well forming an insoluble coat of fluorides at first and then doing nothing else. Eight, why go there? Large natural crystals of fluorides such as calcium difluoride, titanium tetrafluoride, zirconium tetrafluoride are extremely useful in optical instruments of various forms. Uranium appears as uranium hexafluoride already for the diffusion process. Compounds of such nonmetals as boron are obtainable from the atmosphere in high purity with very little trouble. All metallurgy must be electrical. There are considerable deposits of beryllium and they occur in high concentration in its ores. End of introduction number two. Ulur uprising by Henry Beam Piper. Prologue on St. Louis' Footstool. The big armor tender vibrated gently and not unpleasantly as the contragravity field alternated on and off, occasionally burying its normal rate of 500 to the second when some thermal updraft lifted the vehicle and the automatic radar altimeter control acted to alter the frequency and lower it again. Sometimes it rocked slightly like a boat on the water and in the big screen which served in lieu of a window at the front of the control cabin the dingy yellow landscape would seem to tilt a little. If unshielded human eyes could have endured the rays of new pupus, Niflheim's primary, the whole scene would have appeared a vivid St. Patrick's Day green, the effect of the blue predominant light on the yellow atmosphere. The outside visor pickup, however, was fitted with filters which blocked out the gamma rays and x-rays and most of the ultraviolet rays and added the longer light waves of red and orange which were absent so that things looked much as they would have under the light of a G-zero type star like Saul. The air was faintly yellow, the sky was yellow with a greenish cast and the clouds were green-grey. A thousand feet below, the local equivalent of a forest grew, the trees topped with huge ragged leaves looking like hundred-foot stalks of celery. There would be animal life down there, too, little round things four inches across like eight-legged crabs gnawing at the vegetation and bigger things two feet long with articulated shell armor and sixteen legs which fed on the smaller herbivores. Beyond in the middle ground was open grassland if one could so call a mat of worm-like colorless or pastel-tinted sprouts and a river meandered through it. On the skyline, fifty miles away, was a range of low dunes and hills, none more than a thousand feet high. No human had ever set foot on the surface or breathed the air of Niflheim. To have done so would have been instant death. The air was a mixture of free fluorine and fluoride gases. The soil was metallic fluorides, damp with acid rains, and the river was pure hydrofluoric acid. Even the ordinary spacesuit would have been no protection. The glass and rubber and plastic would have disintegrated in a matter of minutes. People came to Niflheim and worked the mines and uranium refineries and chemical plants, but they did so inside power-driven and contra-gavety lifted armor, and they lived on artificial satellites two thousand miles off-planet. This vehicle, for instance, was built and protected as no spaceship ever had to be, completely insulated and entered only through a triple airlock, an outer lock which would be evacuated outward after it was closed, a middle lock kept evacuated at all times, and an inner lock evacuated into the interior of the vehicle before the middle lock could be opened. Niflheim was worse than airless, much worse. The chief engineer cited his controls, making the minor lateral adjustments in the vehicle's position, which were not possible to the automatic controls. One of the radio men was receiving from the orbital base. The other was saying over and over in an exasperatedly patient voice, Dr. Murillo, Dr. Murillo, please come in, Dr. Murillo. At his own panel of instruments, a small man with grizzled black hair around a bald crown and a grizzled beard chewed nervously at the stump of a dead cigar and listened intently to what was, or for what wasn't, coming in to his headset receiver. A couple of assistants checked dials and refreshed their memories from notebooks and peered anxiously into the big screen. A large, plump-faced young man in soiled khaki shirt and shorts with extremely hairy legs was doodling on his notepad and eating candy out of a bag. And a black-haired girl in a suit of coveralls three sizes too big for her and apparently not much of anything else, lounged with one knee hooked over her chair arm, staring into the screen at the distant horizon. Dr. Murillo, Dr. Mirt, the radio man broke off in mid-syllable and listened for a moment. I hear you, doctor, go ahead. Then a moment later, what's your position now, doctor? I can see them," the girl said, lifting a hand in front of her, at two o'clock about one of my hand's breaths above the horizon. The man with the grizzled beard put his face into the fur around the eyepiece of the telescopic visor and twisted a dial. You have good eyes, Miss Quinton, he complimented, only four personal armors. Ahmed, ask him where the fifth is. We only see four of your personal armors, the radio man said, who's missing and why? He waited for a moment, then lowered the handphone and turned. The fifth one's inside the handling machine, one of the Ulurans, Gorkringt. The larger of the specs that had appeared on the horizon resolved itself into a handling machine, a thing like an oversized contra-gravity tank with a bulldozer blade, a stubby, derrick boom instead of a gun, and jointed, claw-tipped arms to the sides. The smaller dots grew into personal armor, egg-shaped things that sprouted arms and grab hooks and pushers in all directions. The man with the grizzled beard began talking rapidly into his handphone, then hung it up. There was a series of bumps and the armor-tender, weightless on contra-gravity, shook as the handling machine came aboard. You ever see any nuclear bombing, Miss Quinton, the young man with the hairy legs asked, offering her his candy bag? Only by telecast, back soul-side, she replied, helping herself. Test shots at the Federation Navy proving ground on Mars. I never even heard of nuclear bombs being used for mining till I came here, though. Well, if this turns out, as well as the other job three months ago, it'll be something to see, he promised. These volcanoes have been dormant for, oh, maybe as long as a thousand years. There ought to be a pretty good head of gas down there. And the magma will be thick, viscous stuff, like basalt on terra. Of course, this won't be anything like basalt in composition. It'll be intensely compressed metallic fluorides with a very high metal content. The volcanoes we shot three months ago yielded a fine flow of lava with all sorts of metals. Nickel, beryllium, vanadium, chromium, indium, as well as copper and iron. What sort of gas were you speaking about, she asked? Hydrogen? That's what's going to make the fireworks. It combines explosively with fluorine. The hydrogen-fluorine combination is what passes for combustion here. The result is hydrofluoric acid, the local equivalent of water. See the metallic core of this planet is covered much less thickly than that of terra with fluoride rock, fluorospar, and that sort of thing. There's nothing like granite here, for instance. That's why those big dunes out there are the best Niflheim has in the way of mountains. The subsurface hydrogen is produced when the acid filters down through the rock, combined with pure metals underneath. Dr. Murillo's Inside Now, the radio man said, just came out of the inner airlock. He'll be up as soon as he gets out of his pressure suit. As soon as he gets here, I'll touch it off, the bearded man said. Everything set, Dion? Everything ready, Dr. Gomez, one of his assistants assured him. The door at the rear of the control cabin opened and Juan Murillo, the seismologist entered, followed by an assistant. Murillo was a big man, copper skin, barrel-chested. He looked like a third or fourth generation Martian of Andy's Indian ancestry. He came forward and stood behind Gomez's chair, looking down at the instruments. His assistant stopped at the door. This assistant was not human. He was a biped, vaguely humanoid, but he had four arms and a face like a lizards, and except for some equipment on a belt, he was entirely naked. He spoke rapidly to Murillo in a squeaking jabber. Murillo turned. Yes, if you wish, Gorkrink, he said, in the English-Spanish-African-Portuguese mixture that was 6th century A.E. lingua tera. Then he turned back to Gomez as the oleran sat down in a chair by the door. Well, she's all yours, Lorenco. Shoot the words. Gomez stabbed the radio detonator button in front of him. A voice came out of the PA speaker overhead. In 60 seconds, the bombs will be detonated. 30 seconds. 15 seconds. 10 seconds. 5 seconds. 4 seconds. 3 seconds. 2 seconds. 1 second. Out on the rolling skyline, 50 miles away, a lance-like ray of blue-white light shot up into the gathering dusk. A clump of 5 rays, really, on half a mile across, blended into one by the distance. An instant later there was a blinding flash, like sheet lightning, and a huge ball of vericolored fire belched upward, leaving a series of smoke rings to float more slowly after it. That fireball flattened, then spread to form the mushroom head of a column of incandescent gas that mounted to overtake it, engorging the smoke rings as it rose, twisting, writhing, changing shape, turning to dark smoke in one moment and belching flame and crackling with lightning the next. The armor tender began to pitch and roll. It was all the engineer and one of the assistants could do together to keep it level. In about half an hour, the large young man told the girl, the real fireworks should be starting. What's coming up now is just small debris from the nuclear blast. When the shockwaves get down far enough to crack things open, the gas will come up and then steam and ash and then the magma. This one ought to be twice as good as the one we shot three months ago. It ought to be every bit as good as Krakatoa on Terra in 59 pre-atomic. Well, even this much was worth staying over for, the girl said, watching the screen. You're going on to Ura on the city of Canberra, Larenco Gomez asked. I have to stay over and make another shot in a month or so and I've had about all of Niflheim I can take now. The sooner I get on to a planet where they don't rash in the air, the better I'll like it. Well, what do you know, the large young man with the hairy legs mock marbled, he doesn't like our nice planet. Nice planet, Gomez muttered something. They called Terra God's Footstool. Well, I'll give you one guess if you've ever been hoofed on. When are you going to Terra, the girl asked him. Terra, I don't know, a year, two years, but I'm going to Ula on the next ship, the city of Pretoria, if we get the next blast off in time. They want me to design some improvements on a couple of power reactors so I'll probably see you when I get there. Here she comes, the chief engineer called. Watch the base of the column. Well, boiling up from where the bombs had gone off far underground was being violently agitated at the bottom. A series of new flashes broke out lifting and spreading the incandescent radioactive gases and then a great gush of flame rose. A column of pure hydrogen must have rushed up into the vacuum created by the explosion. The next blast of flame in a lateral sheet came at nearly 10,000 feet with great rags of fire changing from red to violet and back through the spectrum to red again when soaring away to dissipate in the upper atmosphere. Then geysers of hot ash and molten rocks spouted upward. Some of the white hot debris landed almost at the acid river halfway to the armor tender. We've started a first-class earthquake, too, the Hispano-Indian Martian Morello said, looking at the instruments, about six big cracks opening in the rock structure. You know, when this quiet's down and cools off, we'll have more ore on the surface than we can handle in ten years and more than we could have mined by ordinary means in fifty. About four miles from the original blast another eruption began with a terrific gas explosion. Well, that finishes our work, the large young man said, going to a kit bag in the corner of the cabin and getting out a bottle. Those plastic cups over there, somebody, this one calls for a drink. That's right, Gomez said. You do something once, it may be an accident. You repeat the performance and it's a success. He began pushing papers aside on his desk, and the girl in the two ample coveralls brought drinking cups. The Ulleran in the background rose quickly and squeaked apologetically. Morello nodded. Yes, of course, Gorkrik. No need for you to stay here. The Ulleran went out, closing the door behind him. That taboo against Ullerans and Terrans watching each other eat and drink, Morello said. What is that, part of their religion? No, it's their version of modesty, the girl replied, like some of our sex inhibitions, which they can't even begin to understand. But you were speaking to him in linguatera. I didn't know any of them understood it. Gorkrik does, Morello said, uncorking the bottle and pouring into the plastic cups. None of them speak it, of course, because of the structure of their vocal organs. Any more than we can speak their languages without artificial aids. But I can talk to him in linguatera without having to put one of those damn gags in my mouth, and he can pass my instructions on to the others. He's been a big help. I'll be sorry to lose him. He's going back to Urur on the Canberra. You know it's impossible to keep some trace of fluorine from the air in the handling machines, or even out on the orbiters, and it plays the devil with their lungs. He wanted to stay on another three months to help with the next shot, but the medics wouldn't hear of it. He's from Keyark, wherever on Urur that is. Flames to be a prince or something. I know all the damn good worker, very smart, picks things up the first time you tell him. I'll recommend him unqualifiedly for any kind of work with contragravity or mechanized equipment. They all had drinks now, except the chief engineer who wanted a rain check on his. Well, here's to us, Morillo said, the first A-bomb miners in history. End of introductions and prologue. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ralph Snelson. Urur Uprising by H. Bean Piper. Chapter 1. Commander-in-chief, front and center. General Carlos von Schlichten threw his cigarette away, flexed his hands and his gloves, and set his monocle more firmly in his eye. Stepping forward as the footsteps on the stairway behind him ceased and the other officers emerged from the squat flint keep. Captain Cazabiel, the post-CO, big chocolate brown Brigadier General, the mysticly Mazzangui, little Colonel Hideoshi O'Leary. Far in front of him, to the left, the horizon was lost in the cloud bank over to the land sea. Directly in front, and to the right, the brown and gray and black flint mountains soared into the sky until they vanished in the distance. Unseen below, the old caravan trail climbed one side of the pass and slid down the other, a sheer five hundred feet below the parapet and the two-corner catapult platforms which now mounted ninety millimetre guns. On the ground in front of the keep, his air-car was parked and the soldiers were assembled. Ten or twelve of them were Terrans, a couple of lieutenants, sergeants, gunners, technicians, the sergeant driver, and corporal gunner of his own car. The other fifty odd were Uller and Natives. They stood erect on stumpy legs and broad six-toed feet. They had four arms apiece, one pair from true shoulders midway down the torso. Their skins were slate gray and rubbery, speckled with pinhead sized bits of quartz that had been formed from perspiration for their body tissues were silicone instead of carbon hydrogen. Their narrow heads were unpleasantly sarian. They had small double-lidded red eyes and slit-like nostrils and wide mouths filled with opalescent teeth. Except for their belts and naked, the uniform consisted of the emblem of the Chartered Uller Company, stencil painted on chests and backs. Clothing to them was unnecessary, either for warmth or modesty. As to the former, they were cold-blooded and could stand a temperature range of from a hundred and twenty to minus one hundred centigrade. Bonslictan had seen them sleeping in the open with their bodies covered with frost or freezing rain. They had also seen them wade through boiling water. As to the second, they had practically no sex inhibitions. They were all of the same gender, true functional hermaphrodites. Any individual among them could bear young or fertilize the ova of any other individual. Fifteen years ago when he had come to Uller as a former Terran Federation captain, newly commissioned colonel in the Army of the Uller Company, it had taken some time before they came accustomed to the detailing of an on-com and a couple of privates out of each platoon for babysitting duty. At least, though, they didn't have the squaw trouble around Army Pulse on Uller that they had on Thor, where he had last been stationed. An air jeep coming in out of the sun circled the crag-top fort and let down onto the terrace next to Bonslictan's command-car. It carried a bristle of fifteen millimeter machine guns and two of the eight fifty millimeter rocket tubes on either side were empty and freshly smoked stained. The door glass canopy slid back and the two-man crew, Lieutenant Driver and Sergeant Gunner, jumped out. Bonslictan knew them both. Lieutenant Kendall, Sergeant Garcia, he greeted. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Both saluted in the informal hell with rank where all human manner of Terran soldiers came next to rest real duty and returned the greeting. How's the jeel situation, he asked, then nodded toward the fired rocket tubes. I see you had some shooting. Yes, sir, the Lieutenant said, two bands of them. We sighted the first coming up the eastern side of the mountain, about two miles this side of the Blue Springs. We got about half of them with MG fire and the rest dived into a big rock crevice. We had to use two rockets on them and had to let down and pot a few of them with our pistols. We caught the second band in that little punch bowl place, about a mile this side of Zortok's old fort. There were only six of them. They were bunched together, feeding off one of their own gang, I'd say. The way we've been keeping them up in the high rocks, they've been eating inside the family quite a bit lately. We let them have two rockets. No survivors. Not many very big pieces, in fact. We had two folks for a beer after that and Captain Martinelli told us that one of his jeeps caught what he thinks was the same band that was down off the mountain night before last, and ate those peasants on Prince Neil Dink's estate. God, I'm glad to hear that. There'd been a perfect hell of a flap about that business. Before the Terrans came to Uller it was a good year when not more than five hundred farm folk would be killed and eaten nights ago had been the first of its kind in almost six months. But the nobleman whose serfs had been eaten was practically accusing the company of responsibility for the crime. I'll see that Neil Dink is informed. The more you do for these damned geeks the more they expect from you. When you get your vehicle re-ammoed, Lieutenant, suppose you buzz back to where you machinegun that first gang. If there are any more around they'll have moved in for the time. This breakdown of the Gilles taboo against eating fellow tribesmen was one of the best things he'd heard from the cannibal extermination project for some time. He turned to the mysticly's misangui. In about two weeks get a little task forced together, say ten combat cars, about twenty air jeeps and a battalion of cragen rifles in troop carriers. Oh yes, and this good-for-nothing con-crooked-fencibles outfit jazards they can be used for beaters and to block escape routes. He turned back to Lieutenant Kendall and Sergeant Garcia. Good work, boys, and if the synchro photos show that any of that first bunch got away don't feel too badly about it. These Gilles can hide on the top of a pool table. He climbed into the command car followed by the mysticly's misangui and Hideyoshi Olyri, Sergeant Harry Kwong and Corporal Hassan Bogdanoff took their places on the front seat. The car lifted, turned to nose into the wind and rose in a slow spiral. Below the fort grew smaller, a flat-topped rectangle of masonry overlooking the pass, a gun covering each approach and two more on the square keep to cover the rocky hogback on which the fort had been built with the flagpole between them. Once that pole had lifted a banner of ragged black marsh-flopper skin bearing the device of the Kragenriever chieftain whose family had built the castle. Now it carried a neat rectangle of blue-butting emblazoned with the wreath globe of the Terran Federation and below that the blue-grey pennant which bore the Bermilion trademark of the chartered Euler Company. Where now, sir, Harry Kwong asked, he looked at his watch. 1700. There wasn't time to visit to Zortoak's Old Fort ten miles to the north at the next pass. Back to Concrook to the island, the nose of the car swung east by south. The cold jet rotors began humming and then the hot jets were cut in. The car turned from the fort and the mountains and shot away over the foothills toward the coastal plain. Below were forests, yellow-green with new foliage of the second growing season of the equatorial year, dirt roads and spotted with occasional clearings. For the east the dirty gray wood smoke of Euler marked the progress of the charcoal burnings. It took forty years to burn the forest clear back to the flint cliffs. By the time the burners reached the mountains the new trees at the seaward edge would be ready to cut. Off to the south he could see the dark green squares where the hemlocks and the Norway spruce had been planted by the company. With a little longer they were doing well and they had made better charcoal than the silicate heavy native wood. That was the only natural fuel on Euler. There was no coal, of course, since fallen timber and even standing dead trees petrified in a matter of a couple of years. There was too much silica on Euler and not enough of anything else. What would be coal seams on terra were straight of silicefied wood and of course there was no petroleum. There was less charcoal being burned now than formerly. The Euler company had been bringing in great quantities of synthetic thermoconcentrate fuel and had been setting up nuclear furnaces and nuclear electric power plants wherever they gained a foothold on the planet. Beyond the forest came the farm lands. Around the older estates thick walls of flint and petrified wood had been built. Wide moats dug to keep out the shellisars. But now the moats were dry and the walls falling into disrepair. Some of the newer farms, land devoted to agriculture with the declining demand for charcoal had neither moats nor walls. That was the company, too. The huge shell-armored beasts had become virtually extinct in the conch Isthmus now since the introduction of bazookas and recoilless rifles. There seemed to be quite a bit of power equipment working in the fields and many lorries were drifting back and forth, scattering fertilizer, mainly nitrates from Meemer or Ig-Bercel. There was still a good number of animal-drawn plows and heralds in use, however. As planets went Uller was no bargain, he thought sourly. At times he wished he had never followed the lore of rapid promotion and fantastically high pay and left the Federation regulars for the army of the Uller Company. If he hadn't he'd probably be a colonel at 5,000 sols a year. But maybe it would be better to be a middle-aged colonel on a decent planet, Odin, with its two moons, Hugen and Munan, and its wide grasslands and its evergreen forests that looked and even smelled like the pine woods of Terra or Baldor. With snow-capped mountains and clear cold lakes and rocky rivers dashing under great vine-hung trees, or Freya where the people were human to the last degree and the women were so breath-takingly beautiful, then a company army general at 25,000 on this combination, icebox, furnace, wind tunnel and stone pile where the water tasted like soap suds and left a crackly film when it dried, where the temperature ranged from pole to pole between 250 and minus 150 Fahrenheit and the Beaufort scale ran up to 30, where nothing that ran or swam or grew was fit for the human to eat and where the people of course there were worse planets than Uller, there was Nidhogg, cold and foggy, its equatorial zone a gloomy marsh and the rest of the planet locked in eternal ice. There was bifrost, which always kept the same face turned to its primary, one side blazingly hot and the other close to absolute zero, with a narrow and barely habitable twilight zone between. There was a river, swarming with a race of semi-intelligent quasi-rodents murderous, treacherous, utterly vicious, or Niflheim. The Uller company had the franchise for Niflheim too, they'd had to take that and agree to exploit the planet's resources in order to get the franchise for Uller, which furnished a good quick measure of the comparative merits of the two. Ahead the city of Conkrooke sprawled along the delta of the Conk river and extended itself inland. The river was dry now, except in spring when it was a red-brown torrent it never ran more than a trickle, and not at all this late in the northern summer. The air-car lost altitude and the hot jets stopped firing. They came gliding in over the suburbs and the yellow-green parks, over the low one-story dwellings and shops, the lofty temples and palaces, the fantastically twisted towers, along the street that became increasingly mean and squalid as it neared the industrial district along the waterfront. One sleeked in on the right glanced idly down, puffing slowly on his cigarette. Then he stiffened, the muscles around his right eye clamping tighter on the monocle. Leaning forward he punched Harry Quang lightly on the shoulder. Circle back, Sergeant. Let's have a look at that street with something going on down there. Looks like a riot. Yes, sir, I saw it," the Chinese Australian driver replied. Terrans in trouble, being mobbed by geeks, air-car parked right in the bloody middle of it. The car made a twisting, banking loop and came back, more slowly. Colonel Hideyoshi O'Leary was using the binoculars. That's right, he said, Terrans being mobbed, two of them backed up against the house. I saw a pistol. One sleeked in had the handset of the car's radio and was punching out the combination of the company guard house on Kongong, Kylan. He held down the signal button until he got an answer. One sleeked in in car over Kongcrook, riot on 4th Avenue, just off 72nd Street. No Terrans could possibly remember the names of Kongcrook's streets. Even native troops recruited from outside found the numbers easier and faster. Geeks mobbing a couple of Terrans. I'm going down now to do what I can to help. Send troops in a hurry. Craig and rifles. And stand by. My driver will give it to you as it happens. The voice of somebody at the guard house, bawling orders, came out of the receiver as he tossed the phone forward over Harry Kong's shoulder. Kong caught it and began speaking rapidly and urgently into it while he steered with the other hand. The five-pound spiked riot maces out of the rack in front of him. Themistically his mizangui had already drawn his pistol. He shifted it to his left hand and took a mace in his right. The Niponny's Irish Colonel, looking like a homicidally infuriated pixie, had an automatic in one hand and a long dagger in the other. Harry Kong and Hassan Bogendof were old Utherhands. They'd done this sort of work before. Bogendof was into the ball turret and swung the twin fifteen millimetres around, cutting loose. Kong brought the car in fast at about shoulder height on the mob. Between them they left a swath of mangled, killed, wounded and stunned natives. Then spinning the car around, Kong set it down hard on a clump of rioters as close as possible to the struggling group around the two Utherhands. One sleeked and threw back in Mazangwe behind him. There was another air-car, a dark maroon civilian job at the curb. Its native driver was slumped forward over the controls, a short crossbow bolt sticking out of his neck. Backed against the closed door of the house, a terran with white hair and a small beard was clubbing futily with an empty pistol. He was wounded and blood was streaming over his face. His companion, a young woman in a long fur coat, was laying about her with an eighty-bottle knife. One slicked in his mace had a spiked ball-head and a four-inch spike in front of that. He smashed the ball down on the back of one Utherhands head and jabbed another in the rump with the spike. Zack! Zack! he yelled in pigeon Utherhands. Jick! Jick! you lizard-faced creator's blunder. The Utherhands were old, swinging a blade somewhere between a big mouth was open and there was froth on his lips. Zed! Zubadit! he screamed. One slicked in and parried the cut on the steel shaft of his mace. Zudabit! yourself, you geek bastard! he shouted back, ramming the spike end in the opal-filled mouth and Zanid you too! he added recovering and slamming the ball-head down on the narrow sorian skull. The Utherhands went down, spurting a yellow consistency of gun oil, then without wasting words he maced another of the things. Ahead one of the natives had caught the wounded Terran with both lower hands and was raising a dagger with his upper right. The girl in the fur coat swung wildly slashing the knife arm, then chopped down on the creature's neck. To one side a native somewhat better dressed than the others, to the extent of a couple of belts with gold unslicked and hurled his mace and drew his pistol, thumbing off the safety as he swung it up, but before he could fire Hasan Bogendov had seen and swung his guns around. The double burst caught the native in the chest and fairly tore him apart. Another of them closed with the girl, grabbing her right arm with all four hands and biting at her. She screamed and kicked her attacker in the groin where an Utherhands is, if anything, even a Terran. The native howled hideously, and Von Schlichten jumping over a couple of corpses shoved the muzzle of his pistol into the creature's open mouth and pulled the trigger, blowing its head apart like a rotten pumpkin and splashing both himself and the girl with yellow blood and rancid-looking gray-green brains. Hideocio Liri jumping forward after Von Schlichten stuck his dagger into the neck of a rioter and left it there, under the waist with his free arm. Themistically his mozangui dropped his mace and swung the fray-looking man onto his back. Together they struggled back to the command car, Von Schlichten covering the retreat with his pistol. Another rioter, a Zert nomad from the north, he guessed, was aiming one of the long-barrelled native air rifles, holding the ten-inch globe of the air chamber in both lower hands. Von Schlichten shot him, and the Zert literally blew to pieces. For an instant he wondered how the small bursting charge of a ten-millimeter 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-millimeter autocannon and 15-millimeter 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, Craig and 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 20-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 Kong Krupp'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 Sleekden, who ordinarily entertained a dim opinion of the King of Kong Krupp's soldiery, grudgingly that it was smart work, forehands 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 Sleekden glanced at the front seat of his car, where Harry Kwong, a pistol in his right hand, was still talking into the radio-phone, and Hasan Boganov was putting fresh belts into his guns. Then he saw that the Greco-African Brigadier and the Irish-Japanese colonel had gotten the wounded man into the car. The girl, having dropped her bowel, was leaning against the side of the car, one foot heedlessly in what was left of an Euleran who had gotten smashed under it, weak with nervous reaction. We seem to be, Captain Podolsky, very smart work. You must have those vehicles of yours on a hyperspace drive. How is he, Colonel? We'd better get him to the hospital early, 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 Kregens, and make sure that these geeks of King Jaycarts don't let the riot flare up again, and get away from them. And don't let them get the impression that they can to see that attitude discouraged. Yes, sir, I understand. Captain Podolsky opened the pouch on his belt, and took out the false pallet and the tongue-clicker without which no Terran could do more than mouth accrued and barely comprehensible pigeon Euleran. Stuffing the gadget into his mouth, he turned and began jabbering orders. One sleep didn't help 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 Mazzangui 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 quirked up oddly at the outer corners. Her nails were black-lackered and spotted with little gold stars, evidently a new feminine fad from Tara. I certainly could, General. How did you know my name? You've been on Euler for the last three months, ever since the city of Canberra got in from Niflheim. On Euler there aren't enough of us that everybody doesn't know all about everybody else. Your doctor, Paula Quinton, you're sociographer, and you're a field agent for the Extra-Terrestrials Rights Association, like Mohamed Ferrera here. He took the cup and flask from Themistically Mazangua and poured her a drink. Take this easy now. Baldur Honeyrum 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 stopped the flask and relieved her of the cup. What were you doing in that district anyhow, he wanted to know? I would have thought Mohamed Ferrera 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 Kilak, 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. Kilak was in production to friends of his at Skiilk. With the aid of his monocle, Bond Slickton managed to keep a straight face. Neither Mazangua nor Orlyri had any such aid. The African rolled his eyes and the Japanese Irishman grimaced. We talked with Mr. Kilak 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 had a body carry, along with the emergency rations and the water decillicator. Mr. Ferrara'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, Bond Slickton 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 that's not the world in those 40 millimeters beginning to land in the mob, Bond Slickton replied. The air-car swung out over Concroup Channel and headed toward the Blue Grey Company buildings on Gongongk Island and the Company Airport swarming with lorries and airboats where the 10,000 ton Umpol Kruger had just come in from Kigark and the company's one real warship, the cruiser Procyon was lifting out for Crank in the southern tip of the island, the 3,000 foot globe of the spaceship City of Pretoria from Niflheim was loading with cargo for Terra. Just what happened while you and Mr. Ferrera were in Keeleck's house Miss Quinton, Hideyoshi O'Leary asked, trying not to sound official, was Keeleck with you all the time? Or did he go out for a while, say 15 or 20 minutes before you left? Why yes he did, Paula Quinton did you guess it? You see, a dog started barking behind the house and he excused himself and a dog, Von Schlickton almost shouted, the other officers echoed him, and on the front seat Harry Quong said, coo, blimey why yes, Paula Quinton's eyes widened, but there are no dogs on udder except a few owned by Terrans and wasn't there something about Von Schlickton had the radio phone and was calling the sergeant driver answered. Von Schlickton here, my compliments to Captain Podolsky, 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 Keeleck'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 I want Keeleck brought in alive and in condition to be interrogated I'll send more troops or constabulary to help you. He handed the phone to Mozangui 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, Keeleck 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 but he was only gone five minutes in five minutes I can put all the troops in concrete into action Keeleck doesn't have radio or TV, we hope but he has his forces concentrated and he has a pretty good staff but Mr. Keeleck'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 Mozangui put in and you found the door barred against you, yes but the girl looked troubled, Mozangui had guessed right but what's all the excitement about the dog, what is it the sacred totem animal of the Ulur company, it's just a big brown collie named Stalin like half the dogs on Terra somebody stole it and Keeleck 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 air car let down on the hospital landing stage, a stretcher was waiting with a Terran intern and two Ulurian orderlies, they got the still unconscious Mohammed Ferreira out of the car you'd better go with them yourself Miss Quinton, Bon Slickton 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 grey jacket so I have and another thing those letters Keeleck was going to give you, the ones to his friends in Skilk, did you feel 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, would you go with Miss Quinton? End of Chapter 1 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Ulur Uprising by H. Beam Piper Read by Morgan Siletta Chapter 2 Rakheed, Stalin, and the Reverend Keeleck Von Schlickten, 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 Ulurian chessboard Harrington had the white or center position Blount, sandy-haired and was playing black and his pieces were closing in relentlessly from the outer rim Well, then what? Harrington asked Von Schlickten dropped ash from his cigarette into the tray that served all three of them Nothing much, he replied Keeleck 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 The dog had been kept in a lean-to back of the house It had been removed, probably as soon as Keeleck called in his goongang 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, about a dozen airjeeps patrolling the section from 80th down to 64th front, back to 8th Avenue There is also the equivalent of a regiment of King Jaycarx Infantry Spearman, crossbowman, and a few rifleman And two of those outsized cavalry companies of his helping hold the lid down They're making mass arrests indiscriminately More slaves for Jaycarx Court favorite, of course Or else, Gokurk wants them to use for patronage, Blount outed He's been building quite a political organization lately Getting ready to shove Jaycarx off Harrington pushed one of his pieces out along a radio line toward the rim Blount promptly took a pawn, which, under Ularen rules, entitled him to a second move He shifted another piece, a sort of combination knight and bishop to threaten the peace Harrington had moved Oh, Gokurk wouldn't dare try anything like that, the Governor-General said He knows we wouldn't let him get away with it, and we have too much of an investment in King Jaycarx Then why has Gokurk been supporting Gokurk wanted to know hastily into posing a piece Gokurk can follow one of two lines of policy He can undertake to heave Jaycarx off the throne and seize power Or he has to support Jaycarx on the throne We're subsidizing Jaycarx Rakeed has been preaching this crusade against the Terrans and against Jaycarx whom we control Gokurk has been subsidizing Rakeed You haven't any proof of that Harrington protested My intelligence section has We can give sums of money and dates and the names of the intermediaries through whom they were paid to Rakeed Eric is absolutely correct in making that statement Personally, I think Gokurk's plan is something like this, Rakeed will stir up anti-Terrans sentiment here in Kongkruk and direct it against our puppet, Jaycarx as well as against us, Blount said When the outbreak comes, Jaycarx will be killed and then Gokurk 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 to slaves and King Gokurk will pocket the proceeds The only question is, will Rakeed let himself be used that way? I think Rakeed's bigger than Gokurk ever can be and more of a threat to the company Everywhere we turn, Rakeed's at the bottom of whatever happens to be wrong This business, for instance Killuk's one of Rakeed's followers Eric, you have Rakeed on the brain exclaimed impatiently then moved to the threatened piece counterclockwise on the circle where he had placed it He's just a barbarian caravan driver Eric Blount moved to the piece that had taken Harrington's pawn Your king's in danger, he warned and Hitler was just a paper hanger Rakeed 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 Kongkruk, 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 Kigark and at the free cities along the eastern shore The last time Rakeed was in Kongkruk he was the guest of the Kigark ambassador intelligent 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 Rakeed, three days after he was reported here at Kongkruk, he was reported at Skilk 5,000 miles away said to be having an audience with King Friked No mystery to that Funch looked and said He travels on our ships in disguise Cooley class on the geek deck Be a good idea if he could get caught at it sometime, 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 5,000 feet He watched Harrington make a deceptively pointless looking move Said 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 Kiluk was hiding him and why he was willing to murder the only two Terrans in Kongkruk who trust him to prevent our finding out that he had him After Kiluk A clergyman Funch looked and quoted He chain lit another cigarette and stubbed out the old one Maybe the Reverend Kiluk wanted Stalin for sacramental purposes Blount looked at him sharply Ritual killing He asked Or sympathetic magic Funch looked and shrugged Take your choice Maybe Rakhid wanted the dog to kill before a congregation of his followers I think we worship Stalin and getting control of him would give them the power over us I wish we knew a little more about Ularan 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 Ular most of the fundamental terms of Terran psychology were meaningless At the same time the average Ularan probably had complexes and neuroses that would have had Freud talking to himself and they certainly indulged in practices that would have even stood Kraft Ebbing's hair on end One thing, Blount said it doesn't take any Ularan psychologist to know that about 80% 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 and hate us more deeply with each new benefit Blount added They resent everything we've done for them Yes, this spaceport proposition of King Orgzild of Kegark looks like it now, doesn't it Harrington retorted He hates and resents us so much that he's offered us a spaceport at his city What's it going to cost him? Blount asked He furnishes the land sequestered from the estate of some noble he executed for treason and the labour all forced the machine equipment, the engineering We get a spaceport we don't really need and he gets all the business it'll bring to Kegark Considering the fact that Rakheed is a welcome guest at his embassy here and at the royal palace at Kegark I'm beginning to wonder if he isn't fomenting trouble for us here at Kongkruk to make us willing to move our main base to his city He made a move Instantly Harrington slashed out from the middle of the board with one of his heavy duty all-purpose pieces and took a piece then moved again Now look who's King's threatened, he crowed Yes, I see Blount brought a piece clockwise around the board and took the threatening piece then moved again I hope you see who's King's threatened now Harrington swore, reached out to move a piece and then jerked his hand back as though the piece were radioactive For a while he sat puffing his pipe and staring at the board In fact, Orgzild's so sure we're going to accept his offer that he started building two new power reactors to handle the additional power demand that'll result from the increased business Blount continued Where's he getting the plutonium? Vunch licked and asked Where can he get it? Harrington replied He just bought four tons of it from us off the city of Pretoria That's a hell of a lot of plutonium, Blount said I wonder if he might not have some idea of what else plutonium can be used for besides generating power Oh God, I hope not What are the bed next? Maybe there are burglars Blount said, pointing with his cigarette holder to Harrington's threatened king Can't she do something about that, Sid? Then he turned to Vunch licked in Before we get off the subject how about those letters the Reverend Kuluk gave to the Quentin girl All addressed to Skilkens known to be Rackied Disciples and rabidly anti-Terran Vunch licked in replied We radioed the list to Skilk Colonel Shang Li, our intelligence man there put us back a lot of material on them that looks like the Newgate calendar We turned the letter themselves over to Doc Petrie, the Ulurin philology sharp who is a pretty fair crypto analyst He couldn't find any indications of Cypher, but there was a lot of gossip about Kuluk's friends and parishioners which might have arbitrary code meanings I'm going to explain the situation to Miss Quentin and advise her to have nothing to do with any of the people Kuluk gave her letters too She thought in his king temporarily out of danger losing a piece doing it Think she'll listen to you He asked These extraterrestrial rights association people are a lot of blasted fanatics themselves We're a gang of bloody-handed, flint-hearted imperialistic sons of bitches in their book and anything we say sure to be a Hitler-sized lie Oh, they're not as bad as all that I never met the girl before today, but old Muhammad Ferreira is a decent bloke their association's really done a lot of good for one thing they put an end to the peonage system on Yggdrasil and I know what conditions were like there before they did A calculating look came into Harrington's eye He puffed slowly at his pipe and slid a piece from the center toward the sector of the board nearest him Blount whistled softly and made a quick rearrangement Carlos, did you say she told you she was going to skulk in the near future? Harrington asked Well, look here You're going up that way yourself with that battalion of Kregans on the Aldebaran Why don't you invite her to make the trip with you? You can be quite attractive to young ladies when you try and she'll be grateful for that rescue this afternoon which is always a good foundation Maybe you can plant a couple of ideas where they'll do the most good She's only been here for three months since the Canberra got in from Niflheim You know and I know and we all know that there are a lot of things up there at the polar mines that would look like hell to anybody who didn't understand local conditions Well, Quinton's company won't be any particularly heavy cross for me to bear I won't guarantee anything, of course The intercom speaker on the table whistled several times. Harrington swore laid down his pipe and got up brushing ashes from the front of his coat He flipped a switch and spoke into the box Governor, a voice replied out of it, there's a geek procession just landed from a water barge in front coming up the roadway to company house A platoon of Jay Clark's household guards with rifles, the spear of state a royal litter, about 30 geek nobles on foot, a gift litterer another platoon of riflemen if you say the last syllable quick enough That'll be Gekirk coming to tell us how unhappy his sodden and inebriated geek ship is about that fracas on 72nd Street, Harrington said Have Gekirk and party admitted all but the rifle platoons give him an honor guard of our cragons to keep his gun-toters outside take them to the reception hall and hold them there till I signal from the audience hall and then herd them in He came back and made a move immediately, Blount took one of his pieces moved again, took another and made the third move to which he was entitled I'll mate you in four moves he predicted, want to play it out before we go down Sure, what's time to a geek Gekirk would think we'd be worried about something if we didn't keep him waiting Good Lord, you do have me over a barrel, Eric? Governor General Sidney Harrington sat on the comfortably upholstered bench on the dais of the audience hall flanked by Von Schlichten and Eric Blount He didn't look particularly regal even on that high seat with his ruddy outdoorsman's face and his ragged grey mustache and his old tweed coat spotted with pipe ashes he might have been any of the dozen odd country gentlemen neighbors of Von Schlichten's boyhood in the Argentine but then, to a Tarran any of the kings of Uller would have looked like a freak birth in a lizard house at a zoo it was hard to guess what impression Harrington would make on an Ullerin he took the false palette and tongue clicker officially designated as an enunciator Ullerin and colloquially as a geek speaker out of his coat pocket and shoved it into his mouth Von Schlichten and Blount put in theirs and Harrington pressed the floor button with his toe after a brief interval the wide doors at the other end of the hall slid open and the Concrucian notables attended by a dozen company native officers on a guard of Craig and Rifles entered the honor guard advanced in two columns between them marched an unclad and heavily armed native carrying an ornate spear with a three foot blade upright in front of him with all four hands it was the Concrucian spear of state it represented the proxy presence of King Jaykark behind it stocked the Concrucian equivalent of Prime Minister or Grand Vizier he wore a gold helmet and a thing like a string vest made of gold wire and carried a long sword with a two hand grip and a pair of Terran automatics built for a hand with six four knuckled fingers and a pair of match daggers he was considerably past the Ullerin prime of life 70 or 80 to judge from the worn appearance of his opal teeth the color of his skin was a predominantly reddish tint of his quartz speckles an immature Ullerin would be a very light gray white under the arms and his quartz specks would run from white to pale yellow the retinue of nobles behind Gakerk ran through the whole spectrum from a princeling who was almost oyster gray to old Grocrank the Kigarkan ambassador who was even blacker and more red speckled than Gakerk all of them carried about as much iron mongry as the prime minister the pistols were all Terran and the daggers were mostly made either on Terra or at the Terran operated steelworks on Vellune four slaves brought up the rear carrying an ornately inlaid box on poles when the spear bearer reached the exact middle of the hall he halted and ground his regalia weapon with a thump Gakerk came up and halted a couple of paces behind into the left of the spear and all the other notables drew up in two curved lines some ten paces to the rear with considerable pushing and jostling so to vote she argument with overtones of weapon fingering about precedence all that is but Grocrank and another noble who came up and planted themselves beside Gakerk Von Schlichten regarded the assemblage sourly through his monocle maybe Sid Harrington did look regal after all the governor general rose slowly and descended from the dais advancing to within ten paces of the spear Von Schlichten and Blount accompanying him out of the corner of his eye Von Schlichten watched a couple of Kragen mercenaries with fifty shot machine rifles move unobtrusively to positions from whence they could if necessary spray the visitors with bullets without endangering the Terrans Welcome Gakerk Harrington gibbered through his false pallet the company is honored by this visit I come in the name of my royal master his sublime and ineffable majesty Jay Kark the seventeenth king of Kongkruk and of all the lands of Kongk Isthmus Gakerk squeaked and clicked I have the honor to bring with me the lord Grakrank ambassador of King Orgsyld of Kigar to the court of my royal master and I, Grakrank said after being suitably welcome am honored to be accompanied by Prince Gorkrink special envoy of my master his royal and imperial majesty King Orgsyld who is in your city to receive the shipment of power metal my royal master has been honored to be permitted to purchase from the company more protocol about welcoming Gorkrink then Gakerk cleared his throat with a series of barking sounds my royal master his sublime and ineffable majesty is prostrated with grief he stated solemny where his sorrow not so overwhelming he would have come in his own sacred person to express the pain and shame which he feels that people of the company should be set upon and endangered in the streets of the royal city if you weren't doped to the ears Funschlickton substituted mentally there was a native drug which had on its users the combined effects of hashish, heroin and yo-him-bean Gakerk and all his court circle were addicts he probably hadn't even heard of the riots the soldiers of his sublime and ineffable majesty came most promptly to the aid of the troops and of the company did they not General Funschlickton Harrington asked within minutes your excellency Funschlickton replied gravely their promptness, valor and efficiency were most exemplary Gakerk spoke at length expressing himself as delighted on behalf of his royal master at hearing such high praise from so distinguished a soldier Eric Blount then contributed a short speech beseeching the gods the deep and beautiful friendship existing between the chartered Euler company and his sublime etc would continue unimpaired and that his sublime etc would enjoy long life and peaceful reign managing by trick of concrucian grammar to imply that the second would be conditional upon the first the Qigarken ambassador then spoke his piece expressing on behalf of King Orgzil the deepest regret that the people of the company should be so molested and managing to hint that things like that simply didn't happen at Qigark the prince Gorkrink then spoke briefly in sympathy for the great and good friend of all Euleran peoples, Muhammad Ferreira who had been injured and hoping that he would soon enjoy full health again he also managed to convey King Orgzil's pleasure at having obtained the plutonium Van Schlichten noticed that a few of his more recent court specs were slightly greenish in tinge a sure sign that he had, not long ago been exposed to the fluorine-tented air which men and geeks alike breathed on Niflheim when a geek prince hired out as a laborer for a year on Niflheim he did so for only one purpose to learn Taren technologies Qigark then announced that so enormous a crime against the friends of his sublime etc had not been allowed to go unpunished signalling behind him with one of his lower hands for the box to be brought forward the slaves carried it to the front set it down, opened it taking from it a rug which they spread on the floor on this from the box they placed 24 newly severed opal-greening heads in four neat rows they had all been freshly scrubbed and polished but they still smelled like crushed cockroaches the three Taren's looked at them gravely a double dozen heads was standard payment for an attack in which no Taren had been killed ostensibly they were the heads of the ringleaders in practice they were usually lopped from the first two dozen prisoners or over-aged slaves at hand without regard for whether the victims had even heard of the crime which they were expiating if the extraterrestrials rights association were really serious about the rights of these geeks they'd advocate booting out all these native princes and turning the whole planet over to the company that had been the Taren Federation's idea from the beginning why else give the company's chief representative the title of governor general there was another long speech from Gokurk with the nobles behind him murmuring antiphonal agreement, standard procedure for which there was a standard pun geek chorus and a speech of response from Sid Harrington standing stiffly through the whole rig a marole Funschlichten waited for it to end as finally it did they walked back from the door whence they had exorted the delegation and stood looking down at the Saurian heads on the rug Harrington raised his voice and called to a kregen sergeant whose chevrons were painted on all four arms take this carrion out and stuff it in the incinerator he ordered if any of you think you can clean up this rug in this box you're welcome to them wait a minute Funschlichten told the sergeant to take a pouch to the geek speaker see that head there he asked rolling it over with his toe I killed that geek myself with my pistol while them and hid were getting Ferrara into the car Miss Quinton killed that one with the Bolo see where she chopped him on the back of the neck the cut that took off the head was a little low and missed it and hid O'Leary stuck a knife in that one too he walked around the rug turning heads over with his foot this was a cut rate head payment they just slashed off two dozen heads at the scene of the riot I don't like this butchery of worn out slaves and petty thieves any better than anybody else but this I don't like either six months ago, Gakerk wouldn't have tried to pull anything like this now he's laughing up his non-existent sleeve at us that's what I've been preaching all along Eric Blount took up after him these geeks need having the fear of terror thrown into them nonsense, Eric you're just as bad as Carlos here Harrington tut tutted next you'll be saying that we ought to depose Gakerk and take control of ourselves well, what's wrong with that for an idea Funch looked indemanded don't you think we could our Kragans could go through that army of Gakerks like fast neutrons through toilet paper my god Harrington exploded don't let me hear that kind of talk again we're not conquistadors, we're employees of a business concern we're here to make money honestly by exchanging goods and services with these people he turned and walked away out of the audience hall leaving Wunchlickden and Blount to watch the removal of the geek heads you know, I went a little too far Funchlickden confessed or too fast rather he's got to be conditioned to accept that idea we can't go too slowly either Blount replied if we wait for him to change his mind it'll be the same as waiting for him to retire that'll be waiting too long Wunchlickden nodded seriously did you notice the green specks in the hide of that Prince Gorkrink he asked he's just back from Niflheim not on the Pretoria, I don't think probably on the Canberra three months ago and he's here to get that plutonium and ship it to Kigark on the Um Paul Kruger Blount considered I wonder just what he learned on Niflheim I wonder just what's going on at Kigark Funchlickden said Orgzilds pulled down a regular first century model iron curtain you know, four of our best native intelligence operatives have been murdered in Kigark in the last three months and six more have just vanished there well, I'm going there in a few days myself to talk to Orgzild about this spaceport deal Blount said I'll have a talk with Hendrick Lemoyne and McKinnon and I'll see what I can find out for myself well let's go and have a drink I'm consulting his watch about time for a cocktail End of Chapter 3 Read by Morgan Saletta Chapter 4 Of Ulur Uprising This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Acacia Wood Ulur Uprising by H. B. Piper Chapter 4 If you read it in Stanley Brown Von Schlichten and Blount entered the bar together the Broadway room decorated in gleaming plastics and chromium an enthusiastic and slightly inaccurate imitation of a first century New York nightclub There was no native servants to spoil the illusion such as it was the service was fully automatic Going to a bartending machine Von Schlichten dialed the cocktail they had decided upon and inserted his key to charge the drinks to his account filling a four portion jug As they turned away they almost collided with Hadi Oshio Leary and Paula Quinton The girl wore a long sleeved gown to conceal a bandage on her right wrist and her face was rather heavily powdered in spots otherwise she looked none the worse for recent experiences Well, you seem to have gotten yourself repaired Miss Quinton he greeted her feel better now Blount, Eric, Miss Paula Quinton Delighted Miss Quinton, Blount said Carlos tells us he found you standing over poor Mohamed Ferriera fighting like a commando How is Mohamed, by the way? No danger, I hope we all like him Mohamed Ferriera was still unconscious the girl reported he had a minor concussion but the medics were not greatly disturbed and expected him to be fully recovered in a few weeks I suppose you think it's a joke are being nearly murdered by the people who came to help Paula began a trifle defensively Not a very funny joke Von Schlichten told her it's been played on us till it's lost its humor Yes Geeks and gratitudes an old story to all of us Blount agreed you stay on this planet very long and you'll see what I mean You call me and you'll see what I mean You call them that too, she asked as they're disappointed in him Maybe if you stopped calling them geeks they wouldn't resent you the way they do You know, that's a nasty name In the first century pre-atomic it designated a degraded person who performed some sort of revolting public exhibition Biting off live chickens' heads in a sideshow wild man act Hideo Schilderi supplied When you get up north, watch how the peasants kill these little things like six legged iguanas that they raise for food That isn't the reason though Von Schlichten said as we use it the words pure onomatopoeia You've learned some of the languages You know what they sound like Geek-geek-geek As far as that goes, you know what the geek name for a Terran is? Blount asked She looked puzzled for a moment then slipped in her enunciator Even in the absence of any native she used her handkerchief to mask the act and singly sued a bit Taking out the geek-speaker she put it away Why, that's exactly how they pronounce it And don't tell me you haven't heard it before O'Leary said The geeks were screaming it at you over on 72nd street this afternoon KILL THE TERRANTS That's Racky the Prophet's whole gospel So you see Eric Blount rammed home the moral This is just another case of nobody with any right to call anybody else's kettle black You're right Thank you She leaned toward the lighter flame O'Leary had snapped into being I suspect that of being a principal you'd like me to bear in mind at the polar mines when I see let's say some laborer being beaten by a couple of overseers with three-foot lengths of three-quarter inch steel cable Well, you could also remember that a native skin is about half an inch thick and a good deal tougher than a human Svanshlikton told her Mostly their serfs hired from the big landowners It's a fact you can easily verify that permission to join the labor companies that the polar mines is regarded as a privilege granted as a reward or denied as a punishment And most of the geek landowners are bitterly critical of the way we treat our laborer at the mines They claim we make them dissatisfied with the treatment they get at home Of course, they're always glad to have the peasants taken off their hands during a slack agricultural season, Blount added and we train workers to handle contra-gravity power equipment I won't deny that there's a lot of unnecessary brutality on the part of the native foremen and overseers which we're trying gradually to eliminate You'll have to remember though that we're dealing with a naturally brutal race Of course, mistreatment of native laborers always blamed on other natives never on the gentle and kindly Terrans she replied That's been SOP on every planet our associations had any experience with Now look, you just came here from Niflheim and you've been selected, the company employs quite a few geeks there How much brutality did you run into there? Well, I must admit, the Ulurans who work there are very well treated except that I don't think it's right to employ any people with silicone body tissues where they're going to breathe fluorine tainted air Nobody ought to be employed on that planet How do you, Shio Leary, declared? I did a two-year hitch there when I was first commissioned in the company service I put in two years there too, Blount supported him and I might add that that's a year longer Ulur and native is ever allowed to spend on Niflheim You know what the setup is there, don't you? The Terran Federation Space Navy discovered and explored both Ulur and Niflheim, which made both planets public domain The company was originally formed to exploit Ulur alone but the Federation insisted that both planets would have to be franchised to the same company They wanted Niflheim exploited mainly because of the uranium deposits there As it turned out, the company's making as much money out of Niflheim as we are out of Ulur What you miss is this bunch looked and pointed out On Niflheim, there are about a thousand Terrans and not more than 500 geeks all employed on construction work and in the mines, on the planet itself working directly under Terran's supervision We use them because they have four hands and in the power-driven contra-gravity armor that's necessary there they can manipulate more controls and do more things at once than we can Here on Ulur at the Polar Mines there are about 10,000 geeks 500 Terrans, and most of the latter are engineers or technicians who don't do supervisory work So we have to use native foremen and they're guilty of what mistreatment the workers suffer And remember too, Uluri added work at the Polar Mines can only go on for about two months out of the year mid-September to mid-November at the Arctic and mid-March to mid-May at the Antarctic Naturally, things have to be done in a hurry and under pressure Well, why do you work in the mines at the Poles? Aren't there mineral deposits in places where you can work all year round? Not as rich or as accessible, Blount said You know what the seasons are like at the poles of this planet The temperature will range from about 250 Fahrenheit in mid-summer to 150 below in winter There's the most intense sort of thermal erosion you can imagine The ice cap melts in the spring to a sea which boils away completely by the middle of the summer There will be violent circular storms of hot wind blowing away the light sand and dust and leaving heavier particles of metallic ores and metals behind Then, when the wind falls we move in for a couple of months It isn't really mining or even quarrying We just scoop up ore from the surface load it onto the ore boats and fly it down to Skilk and Crink and Grank where it's melted through the winter The natives run the smelters, use the heat to thaw frozen food for themselves in their livestock while they're melting the ore In the north, metallurgy and food preparation have always been combined that way Yes, if you think the natives who work in mines feel themselves ill-treated you might propose closing them down entirely and see what the native reaction would be Funch looked and told her Independently hired free workers can make themselves rich by native standards in a couple of seasons Many of the serfs pick up enough money from us in Incinipay to buy their freedom after one season Well, if the company's doing so much good on this planet, how is it that this native or keyed, the one you call the mad prophet, is able to find such a following, Paula demanded something wrong somewhere That's a fair question, Blount replied inverting a cocktail jug over his glass to extract the last few drops When we came to Ular we found a culture roughly like that of Europe during the 7th century pre-atomic or more closely like that of Japan before the beginning of the 1st century PA We initiated a technological and economic revolution here and such revolutions have their casualties too A number of classes and groups got squeezed pretty badly like the horse-breeders and harness manufacturers on Terra by the invention of the automobile or the coal and hydroelectric interests when direct conversion of nuclear energy to electric current was developed or the railroads and steamship lines at the time of the discovery of the contra-gravity field Naturally, there's a lot of ill-feeling on the part of merchants and artisans who weren't able or willing to adapt themselves to changing conditions The rail-backing Rikid and yelling You know, it's a shame that Rikid is not a smart crook instead of an honest fanatic He could take in the equivalent of a couple of million souls a year off the North Ular merchants and the equatorial zone ship owners But it is a fact which not even Rikid can successfully deny that we've raised the general living standard of this planet by about 200% Rikid is a zerk, Funch looked and said They're the nomads who hire out to the Northern merchants as caravan drivers and also prey or used to prey on the caravans as brigands Our air freighters got into operation Neither caravan driving nor caravan raiding has been a paying business and our air patrols have made caravan raiding suicidal as well So the zerk's don't like us The only thing they know or are willing to learn is handling these six-legged riding and pack animals we call hyposaurs We employ a few of them as cavalry and a few more of them work as the local equivalent of gauchos and the rest just sit around and listen to Rikid's sermons Both jugs were empty and their rank picked them up after a good-natured wrangle with Munch looked and Blount handed the colonel his credit key The merchants in the North don't like us Besides spoiling the caravan trade we're spoiling their local business because the land-owning barons who used to deal with them are now dealing directly with us At Skilt King for Keds afraid his feudal nobility is going to try to force a runny-mean on him so he's been currying favor with urban merchants that makes him as pro-Rikid and as anti-Terran as they are Jungfank has the support of his barons but he's afraid of his urban bourgeoisie and we pay him a handsome subsidy so he's pro-Terran and anti-Rikid At Skilt Rikid comes and goes openly at Crink he has a prize on his head Jungfank is not one of the assets we boast about too loudly Hideo Shio-Leary said pausing on his way from the table he's as bloody-minded and old-murder as you'd care not to meet in a dark alley anywhere Who he can turn our backs on him and not expect a knife between our shoulders anyhow Von Schlicknen said and we can believe, oh, up to 80% of what he tells us and that's 60% better than any of the other native princes except Kink-Cat of course the Kragans are the only real friends we have on this planet he thought for a moment Miss Quentin, are you doing sociographic research work here in addition to your ex-wife's work? he asked well let me advise you to pay some attention to the Kragans you'll only find them treated at any length at all in that compendium of misinformation Stanley Brown's short sociographic history of beta-hydro-2 and 90% of what Stanley Brown says about them is completely erroneous oh, but they're just a parasite race on the Terrans Dr. Paula Quentin objected you find races like that all through the explored galaxy pathetic cultural mongrels both men laughed heartily Colonel O'Leary, returning with the jugs wanted to know what he missed Blount told him ha, she's been reading that thing of Stanley Browns he said Stanley Brown is one author you can depend on O'Leary issued her if you read it in Stanley Brown it's wrong you know, I don't think she's run into many Kragans we ought to take her over and introduce her to King Kikad Brunch looked in a lab himself to be smitten by an idea by Alice O'Wehad, he exclaimed look, you're going to skilk in the next week, aren't you? well, do you think you could get all your in-jobs cleared up here and be ready to leave by 0800 Tuesday? that's four days from today I'm sure I could well, I'm going to skilk myself with the armed troops of Aldebaran we're stopping at King Kikadstown to pick up a battalion of Kragan rifles for duty at the polar mines where you're going suppose we leave here in my command car go to Kikadstown and wait there till the Aldebaran gets in that would give us about two to three hours if you think the Kragans are pathetic cultural mongrels what you'll see there will open your eyes and I might add that the nearest Stanley Brown ever came to see Kikadstown was from the air, once a distance of four miles well, they live entirely by serving as mercenary soldiers for the Ular Company, don't they? more or less you see, when we came to Ular, they were barbarian brigands, had a string of fords along caravan roads, and at fords and mountain passes and levied tolls they raided into Konkruk and Kikark territory, too well, we had to break that up we fought a little war with them, beat them rather badly in a couple of skirmishes and then made a deal with them that was before my time in old Jerry Kirk was Governor General he negotiated a treaty with their king bought their river sports outright and paid them a subsidy to compensate for loss of tolls and raid spoil and agreed to employ the whole tribe as soldiers we've taught them a lot, you'll see how much when you visit their town but they aren't cultural mongrels you'll like them well, general, I'll take you up, she said that I warn you, this is some scheme to indoctrinate me with the Ular Company side of the case and blind me to unjust exploitation of the natives here and I'll take you up on that fair nap, as long as you don't let fear of being propagandized blind you to the good we're doing here or impair your ability to observe and draw accurate conclusions just stay scientific about it and I'll be satisfied now, let's take time out for lubrication he said filling her glass and passing the jug two hours and five cocktails later they were still at the table and they had taught Paula Quinton some twenty verses of the heathen geeks End of Chapter 4 Recording by Acacia Wood