was a standard pun, geek chorus--and a speech of response from Sid
Harrington. Standing stiffly through the whole rigamarole, von
Schlichten waited for it to end, as, finally, it did.

They walked back from the door, whence they had escorted the
delegation, and stood looking down at the saurian heads on the rug.
Harrington raised his voice and called to a Kragan sergeant whose
chevrons were painted on all four arms.

"Take this carrion out and stuff it in the incinerator," he ordered.

* * * * *

"Wait a minute," von Schlichten told the sergeant. Then he disgorged
and pouched his geek-speaker. "See that head, there?" he asked,
rolling it over with his toe. "I killed that geek, myself, with my
pistol. And Hid O'Leary stuck a knife in that one." He walked around
the rug, turning heads over with his foot. "This was a cut-rate
head-payment; they just slashed off two-dozen heads at the scene of
the riot. Six months ago, Gurgurk wouldn't have tried to pull anything
like this. Now he's laughing up his non-existent sleeve at us."

"That's what I've been preaching, all along," Eric Blount took up
after him. "These geeks need having the fear of Terra thrown into
them."

"Oh, nonsense, Eric; you're just as bad as Carlos, here!" Harrington
tut-tuted. "Next, you'll be saying that we ought to depose Jaikark
and take control ourselves."

"Well, what's wrong with that, for an idea?" von Schlichten demanded.

"My God!" Harrington exploded. "Don't let me hear that kind of talk
again! We're not _conquistadores_: we're employees of a business
concern, here to make money honestly, by exchanging goods and services
with these people...."

* * * * *

He turned and walked away, out of the Audience Hall, leaving von
Schlichten and Blount to watch the removal of the geek-heads.

"You know, I went a little too far," von Schlichten confessed. "Or too
fast, rather."

"We can't go too slowly, though," Blount replied.

Von Schlichten nodded seriously. "Did you notice the green specks in
the hide of that Prince Gorkrink?" he asked. "He's just come back from
Niflheim. Probably on the _Canberra_, three months ago."

"And he's here to get that plutonium, and ship it to Keegark on the
_Oom Paul Kruger_," Blount considered. "I wonder just what he learned,
on Niflheim."

"I wonder just what's going on at Keegark," von Schlichten said.
"Orgzild's pulled down a regular First-Cent