The Second H. Beam Piper Omnibus

by H. Beam Piper

  "Give them one clip, reload, and then give them the bayonet!” he ordered. “Shove them off the steps and then clear the porch!"

  The hundred rifles let go all at once; and for five seconds they poured a deafening two thousand rounds into the mutineers. There was some fire in reply; a Zirk corporal narrowly missed him with a pistol; he saw the captain's head fly apart when an explosive rifle-bullet hit him, and half a dozen Kragans went down.

  "Reload! Set your safeties!” von Schlichten bellowed. “Charge!"

  * * * *

  Under human officers, the North Ullr Native Infantry would have stood firm. Even under their native-officers and sergeants, they should not have broken as they did, but the best of these had paid for their loyalty to the Company with their lives. At that, the Skilkan peasantry who made up the Tenth Infantry, and the Zirk cavalrymen, tried briefly to fight as individuals, shrieking “Znidd suddabit!” until the Kragans were upon them, stabbing and shooting. They drove the rioters from the steps or killed them there, they wiped out those who had gotten into the semicircle of the storm-porch. The inside doors, von Schlichten saw, were open, but beyond them were Terrans and a dozen or so Kragans. Hideyoshi O'Leary and Barney Mordkovitz seemed to be in command of these.

  "We had about thirty seconds’ warning,” Mordkovitz reported, “and the Kragans in the hall bought us another sixty seconds. Of course, we all had our pistols...."

  "Hey! These storm-doors are wedged!” somebody discovered. “Those goddam geek servants...!"

  "Yeah; kill any of them you catch,” somebody else advised. “If we could have gotten these doors closed...."

  The mob, driven from the steps, was trying to re-form and renew the attack. From up the street, the machine-guns, silent during the bayonet-fight, began hammering again. The mob surged forward to get out of their fire, and were met by a rifle-blast and a hedge of bayonets at the steps; they surged back, and the machine-guns flailed them again. They started to rush the building from whence the automatic-fire came, and there was a fusilade and a shriek of “Znidd geek!” from up the street. They turned and fled in the direction from whence they had come, bullets scourging them from three directions at once.

  For a moment, von Schlichten and the three Terrans and eighty-odd Kragans who had survived the fight stood on the steps, weapons poised, seeking more enemies. The machine-guns up the street stuttered a few short bursts and were silent. From behind, the beleaguered Terrans and their Kragan guards were emerging. He saw Jules Keaveney and his wife; Commander Prinsloo of the Aldebaran; Harry Quong and Bogdanoff. Ah, there she was! He heaved a breath of relief and waved to her.

  The Kragans were already setting about their after-battle chores. A couple of hundred more Kragans, led by Native-Major Kormork, the co-parent of young with King Kankad, came up at the double and stopped in front of Company House.

  * * * *

  "We were in quarters, aboard the Aldebaran and in the guest-house at the airport,” Kormork reported. “We were attacked, fifteen minutes ago, by a mob. We took ten minutes beating them off, and five more getting here. I sent Native-Captain Zeerjeek and the rest of the force to re-take the supply-depot and the shops and lorry hangars, which had been taken, and relieve the military airport, which is under attack."

  "Good enough. I hope you didn't spread yourself out too thin. What's the situation at the commercial airport?"

  "The two ships, the Aldebaran and the freighter Northern Star, are both safe,” Kormork replied. “I saw them go on contragravity and rise to about a hundred feet."

  "Whose crowd is that you have?” he asked the Terran lieutenant who had taken over command of the first force of Kragans.

  "Company 6, Eighteenth Rifles, sir. We were on duty at the guardhouse; fighting broke out in the direction of the native barracks. A couple of runners from Captain Retief of Company 4 came in with word that he was being attacked by mutineers from the Tenth N.U.N.I., but that he was holding them back. So Captain Charbonneau, who was killed a few minutes ago, left a Terran lieutenant and a Kragan native-lieutenant and a couple of native-sergeants and thirty Kragans to hold the guardhouse, and brought the rest of us here."

  Von Schlichten nodded. “You'd pass the military airport and the power-plant, wouldn't you?” he asked.

  "Yes, sir. The military airport's holding out, and I saw the red-and-yellow danger-lights on the fence around the power-plant."

  That meant the power-plant was, for the time, safe; somebody'd turned twenty thousand volts into the fence.

  "All right. I'm setting up my command post at the telecast station, where the communication equipment is.” He turned to the crowd that had come out onto the porch from inside. “Where's Colonel Cheng-Li?"

  "Here, general.” The Intelligence and Constabulary officer pushed through the crowd. “I was on the phone, talking to the military airport, the commercial airport, ordnance depot, spaceport, ship-docks and power plant. All answer. I'm afraid Pop Goode, at the city power-plant, is done for; nobody answers there, but the TV-pickup is still on in the load-dispatcher's room, and the place is full of geeks. Colonel Jarman's coming here with a lorry to get combat-car crews; he's short-handed. Port-Captain Leavitt has all the native labor at the airport and spaceport herded into a repair dock; he's keeping them covered with the forward 90-mm. gun of the Northern Star. Lorry-hangars, repair-shops and maintenance-yards don't answer."

  "That's what I was going to ask you. Good enough. Harry Quong, Hassan Bogdanoff!"

  His command-car crew front-and-centered.

  "I want you to take Colonel O'Leary up, as soon as my car's brought here.... Hid, you go up and see what's going on. Drop flares where there isn't any light. And take a look at the native-labor camp and the equipment-park, south of the reservation.... Kormork, you take all your gang, and half these soldiers from the Eighteenth, here, and help clear the native-troops barracks. And don't bother taking any prisoners; we can't spare personnel to guard them."

  Kormork grinned. The taking of prisoners had always been one of those irrational Terran customs which no Ullran regarded with favor, or even comprehension.

  CHAPTER VI

  There was fresh intelligence from Konkrook, by the time he returned to the telecast station. Mutiny had broken out there among the laborers and native troops, who outnumbered the Terrans and their Kragan mercenaries on Gongonk Island by five thousand to five hundred and fifteen hundred respectively. The attempt to relieve Jaikark's palace had been called off before the relief-force could be sent; there was heavy and confused fighting all over the island, and most of the combat contragravity and about half the Kragan Rifles had had to be committed to defend the Company farms across the Channel, on the mainland, south of the city. There had also been an urgent call for help from Colonel Rodolfo MacKinnon, in command of Company troops at the Keegark Residency.

  He called Keegark; a girl, apparently one of the civilian telecast technicians, answered.

  "We must have help, General von Schlichten,” she told him. “The native troops, all but two hundred Kragans, have mutinied. They have everything here except Company House-docks, airport, everything. We're trying to hold out, but there are thousands of them."

  "What happened to Eric Blount and your Resident-Agent, Mr. Lemoyne?"

  "We don't know. They were at the Palace, talking to King Orgzild. We've tried to call the Palace, but we can't get through. General, we must have help...."

  A call came in, a few minutes later, from Krink, five hundred miles to the north-east across the mountains; the Resident-Agent there, one Francis Xavier Shapiro, reported rioting in the city and an attempted palace-revolution against King Jonkvank, and that the Residency was under attack. By way of variety, it was the army of King Jonkvank that had mutinied; the Sixth North Ullr Native Infantry and the two companies of Zirk cavalry at Krink were still loyal, along with the Kragans.

  * * * *

  There was a pattern to all this. Von Schlichten stood staring at the big map, on the wall, showing the
Takkad Sea area at the Equatorial Zone, and the country north of it to the Pole, the area of Ullr occupied by the Company. He was almost beginning to discern the underlying logic of the past half-hour's events when Keaveney, the Skilk Resident, blundered into him in a half-daze.

  "Sorry, general; didn't see you.” His face was ashen, and his jowls sagged. “My God, it's happening all over Ullr! Why, it's the end of all of us!"

  "It's not quite that bad, Mr. Keaveney.” He looked at his watch. It was now nearly an hour since the native troops here at Skilk had mutinied. Insurrections like this usually succeeded or failed in the first hour. “If we all do our part, we'll come out of it all right,” he told Keaveney, more cheerfully than he felt, then turned to ask Brigadier-General Mordkovitz how the fighting was going at the native-troops barracks.

  "Not badly, general. Colonel Jarman's got some contragravity up and working. They blew out all four of the Tenth N.U.N.I.'s barracks; the Tenth and the Zirks are trying to defend the cavalry barracks. Some of our Kragans managed to slip around behind the cavalry stables. They're leading out hipposaurs, and sniping at the rear of the cavalry barracks."

  "That'll give us some cavalry of our own; a lot of these Kragans are good riders.... How about the repair-shops and maintenance-yard and lorry-hangars? I don't want these geeks getting hold of that equipment and using it against us."

  "Kormork's outfit are trying to take back the lorry-hangars. Jarman's got a couple of airjeeps and a combat-car helping them."

  "...won't be one of us left by this time tomorrow,” Keaveney was wailing, to Paula Quinton and another woman. “And the Company is finished!"

  Colonel Cheng-Li, the Intelligence officer, approached Keaveney and tried to quiet him. At the same time, a woman in black slacks and an orange sweater-the one whose pursuers had been overrun by the Kragans at the beginning of the fighting-approached von Schlichten.

  "General; King Kankad's calling,” she said. “He's on the screen in booth four."

  * * * *

  Kankad's face was looking out of the screen at him, with Phil Yamazaki, the telecast operator at Kankad's Town, standing behind him.

  "Von!” The Kragan spoke almost as though in physical pain. “What can I do to help? I have twenty thousand of my people here who are capable of bearing arms, all with firearms, but I have transport for only five hundred. Where shall I send them?"

  Von Schlichten thought quickly. Keegark was finished; the Residency stood in the middle of the city, surrounded by two hundred thousand of King Orgzild's troops and subjects. Sending Kankad's five hundred warriors and his meager contragravity there would be the same as shovelling them into a furnace. The people at Keegark would have to be written off, like the twenty Kragans at Jaikark's palace.

  "Send them to Konkrook,” he decided. “Them M'zangwe's in command, there; he'll need help to hold the Company farms. Maybe he can find additional transport for you. I'll call him."

  "I'll send off what force I can, at once,” Kankad promised. “How does it go with you at Skilk?"

  "We're holding, so far,” he replied.

  Captain Inez Malavez, the woman officer in charge of the station, put her head into the booth.

  "General! Immediate-urgency message from Colonel O'Leary,” she said. “Native laborers from the mine-labor camp are pouring into the mine-equipment park. Colonel O'Leary's used all his rockets and mg-ammunition trying to stop them."

  "Call you back, later,” von Schlichten told Kankad. “I'll see what Them M'zangwe can do about transport; get what force you can started for Konkrook at once."

  He left the booth. “Barney!” he called. “General Mordkovitz! Who's the ranking officer in direct contact with the Eighteenth Rifles? Major Falkenberg?"

  "That's right."

  "Well, tell him to get as many of his Kragans as he can spare down to the equipment-park.” He turned to Inez Malavez. “You call Jarman; tell him what O'Leary reported, and tell him to get cracking on it. Tell him not to let those geeks get any of that equipment onto contragravity; knock it down as fast as they try to lift out with it. And tell him to see what he can do in the way of troop-carriers or lorries, to get Falkenberg's Rifles to the equipment-park.... How's business at the lorry-hangars and maintenance-yard?"

  "Kormork's still working on that,” the girl captain told him. “Nothing definite, yet."

  * * * *

  In one corner of the big room, somebody had thumbtacked a ten-foot-square map of the Company area to the floor. Paula Quinton and Mrs. Jules Keaveney were on their knees beside it, pushing out handfuls of little pink and white pills that somebody had brought in two bottles from the dispensary across the road, each using a billiard-bridge. The girl in the orange sweater had a handful of scribbled notes, and was telling them where to push the pills. There were other objects on the map, too-pistol-cartridges, and cigarettes, and foil-wrapped food-concentrate wafers. Paula, seeing him, straightened.

  "The pink are ours, general,” she said. “The white are the geeks.” Von Schlichten suppressed a grin; that was the second time he'd heard her use that word, this evening. “The cigarettes are airjeeps, the cartridges are combat-cars, and the wafers are lorries or troop-carriers."

  "Not exactly regulation map-markers, but I've seen stranger things used.... Captain Malavez!"

  "Yes, sir?” The girl captain, rushing past, her hands full of teleprint-sheets, stopped in mid-stride.

  "What we need,” he told her, “is a big TV-screen, and a pickup mounted on some sort of a contragravity vehicle at about two to five thousand feet directly overhead, to give us an image of the whole area. Can do?"

  "Can try, sir. We have an eight-foot circular screen that ought to do all right for two thousand feet. I'll implement that at once."

  Going into a temporarily idle telecast booth, he called Konkrook, and finally got Themistocles M'zangwe on the screen.

  "How is it, now?” he asked.

  "Getting a little better,” the Graeco-African replied. “Half an hour ago, we were shooting geeks out the windows, here; now we have them contained between the spaceport and the native-troops and labor barracks, and down the east side of the island to the farms. We have the wire around the farms on the island electrified, and we're using almost all our combat contragravity to keep the farms on the mainland clear.” He hesitated for a moment. “Did you hear about Eric Blount and Lemoyne?"

  Von Schlichten shook his head.

  * * * *

  "The whole party that were at Orgzild's palace were massacred. Some of them were lucky enough to get killed fighting. The geeks took Eric and Hendrik alive; rolled them in a puddle of thermoconcentrate fuel and set fire to them. When we can spare the contragravity, we're going to drop something on the Kee-geek embassy, over in town."

  Von Schlichten grimaced, but he'd expected something like it. He told M'zangwe about King Kankad's offer. “His crowd ought to be coming in in a couple of hours. What can you scrape up to send to Kankad's Town to airlift Kragans in?"

  "Well, we have three hundred-and-fifty-foot gun-cutters, one 90-mm. apiece. The Elmoran, the Gaucho, and the Bushranger. But they're not much as transports, and we need them here pretty badly. Then, we have five fertilizer and charcoal scows, and a lot of heavy transport lorries, and two one-eighty-foot pickup boats."

  "How about the Piet Joubert?” von Schlichten asked. “She was due in Konkrook from the east about 1300 today, wasn't she?"

  M'zangwe swore. “She got in, all right. But the geeks boarded her at the dock, within twenty minutes after things started. They tried to lift out with her, and the Channel Battery shot her down into Konkrook Channel, off the Fifty-sixth Street docks."

  "Well, you couldn't let the geeks have her, to use against us. What do you hear from the other ships?"

  "Procyon's at Grank; we haven't had any reports of any kind from there, which doesn't look so good. The Northern Lights is at Grank, too. The Oom Paid Kruger should have been at Bwork, in the east, when the gun went off. And the Jan Smuts
and the Christiaan De Wett were both at Keegark; we can assume Orgzild has both of them."

  "All right. I'm sending Aldebaran to Kankad's, to pick up more reenforcements for you."

  * * * *

  Leaving the booth, he heard, above the clatter of communications-machines and the hubbub of voices, Jules Keaveney arguing contentiously. Evidently Colonel Cheng-Li's efforts to drag the Resident out of his despondency had been an excessive success.

  "But it's crazy! Not just here; everywhere on Ullr!” Keaveney was saying. “How did they do it? They have no telecast equipment."

  "You have me stopped, Jules,” Mordkovitz was replying. “I know a lot of rich geeks have receiving sets, but no sending sets."

  The pattern that had been tantalizing von Schlichten took visible shape in his mind. For a moment, he shelved the matter of the Aldebaran.

  "They didn't need sending equipment, Barney,” he said. “They used ours. Sid Harrington was poisoned in Konkrook. The news, of course, was sent out at once, as the geeks knew it would be, to every residency and trading-station on Ullr, and that was the signal they'd agreed upon, probably months in advance!"

  "Well, what was our Intelligence doing; sleeping?” Keaveney demanded angrily.

  "No; they were writing reports for your civil administration blokes to stuff in the wastebasket, and being called mailed-fist-and-rattling-sabre alarmists for their pains.” He turned away from Keaveney. “Barney, where is Dirk Prinsloo?"

  "Aboard his ship. He hitched a ride to the airport with Jarman, when he was here picking up air-crews."

  "Call him. Tell him to take the Aldebaran to Kankad's Town, at once; as soon as he arrives there, which ought to be about 1100, he's to pick up all the Kragans he can pack aboard and take them to Konkrook. From then on, he'll be under Them M'zangwe's orders."