,
too; she was thinking, as he was, of what King Orgzild and Prince
Gorkrink were doing now. "And I know positively that the order for the
poisoning of Sid Harrington came from the Keegarkan Embassy, here, and
was passed down through Gurgurk and Keeluk to this geek here who
actually put the poison in the whiskey."

"Yes. I agree that Keegark should be wiped out, and I'd like to have
an immediate estimate on the time it'll take to build a nuclear bomb
to do the job. One of the old-fashioned plutonium fission A-bombs will
do quite well."

Everybody turned quickly. There was a momentary silence, and then
Colonel Evan Colbert, of the Fourth Kragan Rifles, the senior officer
under Themistocles M'zangwe, found his voice.

"If that's an order, general, we'll get it done. But I'd like to
remind you, first, of the Company policy on nuclear weapons on this
planet."

"I'm aware of that policy. I'm also aware of the reason for it. We've
been compelled, because of the lack of natural fuel on Ullr, to set up
nuclear power reactors and furnish large quantities of plutonium to
the geeks to fuel them. The Company doesn't want the natives here
learning of the possibility of using nuclear energy for destructive
purposes. Well, gentlemen, that's a dead issue. They've learned it,
thanks to our people on Niflheim, and unless my estimate is entirely
wrong, King Orgzild already has at least one First-Century
Nagasaki-type plutonium bomb. I am inclined to believe that he had at
least one such bomb, probably more, at the time when orders were sent
to his embassy, here, for the poisoning of Governor-General
Harrington."

With that, he selected a cigarette from his case, offered it to Paula,
and snapped his lighter. She had hers lit, and he was puffing on his
own, when the others finally realized what he had told them.

"That's impossible!" somebody down the table shouted, as though that
would make it so. Another--one of the civil administration
crowd--almost exactly repeated Jules Keaveney's words at Skilk: "What
the hell was Intelligence doing; sleeping?"

"General von Schlichten," Colonel Grinell took oblique cognizance of
the question. "You've just made, by implication, a most grave charge
against my department. If you're not mistaken in what you've just
said, I deserve to be court-martialled."

"I couldn't bring charges against you, colonel; if it were a
court-martial matter, I'd belong in the dock with you," von Schlichten
told h