w days. How long do you estimate this operation
against Konkrook's going to take, to complete pacification, Them?"

"How complete is complete pacification, general?" Themistocles
M'zangwe wanted to know. "If you mean to the end of organized
resistance by larger than squad-size groups, I'd say three days, give
or take twelve hours. Of course, there'll be small groups holding out
for a couple of weeks, particularly in the farming country and back in
the forest...."

"We can forget them; that's minor-tactics stuff. We'll need to keep
some kind of an occupation force here for some time; they can deal
with that. We'll have to get to work on Keegark, as soon as possible;
after we've reduced Keegark, we'll be able to reorganize for a
campaign against the Free Cities on the Eastern Shore."

"Begging your pardon, general, but reduce is a mild word for what we
ought to do to Keegark," Hans Meyerstein said. "We ought to raze that
city as flat as a football field, and then play football on it with
King Orgzild's head."

"Any special reason?" von Schlichten asked. "In addition to the
Blount-Lemoyne massacre, that is?"

"I should say so, general!" Themistocles M'zangwe backed Meyerstein
up. "Bob, you tell him."

Colonel Robert Grinell, the Intelligence officer, got up and took the
cigar out of his mouth. He was short and round-bodied and bald-headed,
but he was old Terran Federation Regular Army through and through.

"Well, general, we've been finding out quite a bit about the genesis
of this business, lately," he said. "From up North, it probably looked
like an all-Rakkeed show; that's how it was supposed to look. But the
whole thing was hatched at Keegark, by King Orgzild. We've managed to
capture a few prominent Konkrookans"--he named half a dozen--"who've
been made to talk, and a number of others have come in voluntarily and
furnished information. Orgzild conceived the scheme in the beginning;
Rakkeed was just the messenger-boy. My face gets the color of the
Company trademark every time I think that the whole thing was planned
for over a year, right under our noses, even to the signal that was to
touch the whole thing off...."

"The poisoning of Sid Harrington, and our announcement of his death?"
von Schlichten asked.

"You figured that out yourself, sir? Well, that was most of it."

Grinell went on to elaborate, while von Schlichten tried to keep the
impatience out of his face. Beside him, Paula Quinton was fidgeting