ong, and maybe you
can plant a couple of ideas where they'll do the most good. We all
know there are a lot of things at the polar mines that would look bad
to anybody who didn't understand. And with all this trouble being
stirred up now...."

It was his first admission that there _was_ trouble, but von
Schlichten let it pass. "Her company wouldn't be any heavy cross to
bear," he replied. "I won't guarantee anything, of course...."

The intercom-speaker on the table whistled, and Harrington 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 Jaikark's
Household Guards with a royal litter, Spear of State, gift-litter,
nobles and such."

"Gurgurk with indemnity for the riot, eh? Let them in, give them an
honor guard of Kragans, but keep their own gun-toters outside. Take them
to Reception Hall until I signal from Audience Hall, then herd them in."
He flipped back the switch and turned back. "We'll have to let them wait
or they'll think we're worried. But you see--everything's going along
normal lines."

Blount nodded, but his face showed disbelief. And von Schlichten
grumbled unhappily to himself, without knowing why, until they finally
went out to the big Audience Hall to meet the delegation.

Governor-General Sidney Harrington, on the comfortably-upholstered
bench on the dais of the Audience Hall, didn't look particularly
regal. But then, to a Terran, any of the kings of Ullr 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 the Ullran psychology.

He took the false palate and tongue-clicker, officially designated as
an "enunciator, Ullran" 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 Konkrookan notables, attended by a dozen
Company native-officers and a guard of Kragan 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
Konkrookan Spear of State; it represented the proxy-presence of King
Jaikark. Behind