olonel Jarman's coming here with a lorry to get combat-car
crews; he's short-handed. Port-Captain Leavitt has all the native
labor at the airport and spaceport herded into a repair dock; he's
keeping them covered with the forward 90-mm. gun of the _Northern
Star_. Lorry-hangars, repair-shops and maintenance-yards don't
answer."

"That's what I was going to ask you. Good enough. Harry Quong, Hassan
Bogdanoff!"

His command-car crew front-and-centered.

"I want you to take Colonel O'Leary up, as soon as my car's brought
here.... Hid, you go up and see what's going on. Drop flares where
there isn't any light. And take a look at the native-labor camp and
the equipment-park, south of the reservation.... Kormork, you take all
your gang, and half these soldiers from the Eighteenth, here, and help
clear the native-troops barracks. And don't bother taking any
prisoners; we can't spare personnel to guard them."

Kormork grinned. The taking of prisoners had always been one of those
irrational Terran customs which no Ullran regarded with favor, or even
comprehension.

VI

There was fresh intelligence from Konkrook, by the time he returned
to the telecast station. Mutiny had broken out there among the
laborers and native troops, who outnumbered the Terrans and their
Kragan mercenaries on Gongonk Island by five thousand to five hundred
and fifteen hundred respectively. The attempt to relieve Jaikark's
palace had been called off before the relief-force could be sent;
there was heavy and confused fighting all over the island, and most of
the combat contragravity and about half the Kragan Rifles had had to
be committed to defend the Company farms across the Channel, on the
mainland, south of the city. There had also been an urgent call for
help from Colonel Rodolfo MacKinnon, in command of Company troops at
the Keegark Residency.

He called Keegark; a girl, apparently one of the civilian telecast
technicians, answered.

"We must have help, General von Schlichten," she told him. "The native
troops, all but two hundred Kragans, have mutinied. They have
everything here except Company House--docks, airport, everything.
We're trying to hold out, but there are thousands of them."

"What happened to Eric Blount and your Resident-Agent, Mr. Lemoyne?"

"We don't know. They were at the Palace, talking to King Orgzild.
We've tried to call the Palace, but we can't get through. General, we
must have help...."

A call came in,