one or knew he couldn't make one, and he
wouldn't give up trying in only three months. Therefore, I think we
can assume that he succeeded, and had succeeded at the time he sent
Gorkrink here to get that four tons of plutonium we let him have, and,
incidentally, to tell his ambassador to pass the word to have Sid
Harrington poisoned according to plan."

"Then why didn't he just use it on us at the start of the uprising?"
Meyerstein wanted to know.

"Why should he? Getting rid of us is only the first step in Orgzild's
plan," Grinell said. "Back as far as geek history goes, the Kings of
Keegark have been trying to conquer Konkrook and the Free Cities and
make themselves masters of the whole Takkad Sea area. Let Konkrook
wipe us out, and then he can move in his troops and take Konkrook. Or,
if we beat off the geeks here, as we seem to be doing, he can bomb us
out and then move in on Konkrook. I think that as long as we're
fighting, here, he'll wait. The more damage we do to Konkrook, the
easier it'll be for him."

"Then we'd better start dragging our feet on the Konkrook front,"
Laviola said. "And get busy trying to build a bomb of our own."

* * * * *

Von Schlichten looked up at the big screen, on which the battle of
Konkrook was being projected from an overhead pickup.

"I'll agree on the second half of it," von Schlichten said. "And we'll
also have to set up some kind of security-patrol system against
bombers from Keegark. And as soon as _Procyon_ gets here, we'll have
to send her out to hunt down and destroy those two Boer-class
freighters, the _Jan Smuts_ and the _Kruger_. And we'll have to
arrange for protection of Kankad's Town; that's sure to be another of
Orgzild's high-priority targets. As to the action against Konkrook,
I'll rely on your advice, Them. Can we delay the fall of the city for
any length of time?"

M'zangwe shook his head. "When we divert contragravity to
security-patrol work, the ground action'll slow up a little, of
course. But the geeks are about knocked out, now."

"The hell with it, then. I doubt if we'd be able to buy much time from
Orgzild by delaying victory in the city, and we'll probably need the
troops as workers over here." He turned to Pickering. "Dr. Pickering,
what sort of a crew can you scrape together to design a bomb for us?"
he asked.

"Well, there's Martirano, and Sternberg, and Howard Fu-Chung, and Piet
van Reenen, and...." He nodded to