n black slacks and an
orange sweater--the one whose pursuers had been overrun by the Kragans
at the beginning of the fighting--approached von Schlichten.

"General; King Kankad's calling," she said. "He's on the screen in
booth four."

* * * * *

Kankad's face was looking out of the screen at him, with Phil
Yamazaki, the telecast operator at Kankad's Town, standing behind him.

"Von!" The Kragan spoke almost as though in physical pain. "What can I
do to help? I have twenty thousand of my people here who are capable
of bearing arms, all with firearms, but I have transport for only five
hundred. Where shall I send them?"

Von Schlichten thought quickly. Keegark was finished; the Residency
stood in the middle of the city, surrounded by two hundred thousand of
King Orgzild's troops and subjects. Sending Kankad's five hundred
warriors and his meager contragravity there would be the same as
shovelling them into a furnace. The people at Keegark would have to be
written off, like the twenty Kragans at Jaikark's palace.

"Send them to Konkrook," he decided. "Them M'zangwe's in command,
there; he'll need help to hold the Company farms. Maybe he can find
additional transport for you. I'll call him."

"I'll send off what force I can, at once," Kankad promised. "How does
it go with you at Skilk?"

"We're holding, so far," he replied.

Captain Inez Malavez, the woman officer in charge of the station, put
her head into the booth.

"General! Immediate-urgency message from Colonel O'Leary," she said.
"Native laborers from the mine-labor camp are pouring into the
mine-equipment park. Colonel O'Leary's used all his rockets and
mg-ammunition trying to stop them."

"Call you back, later," von Schlichten told Kankad. "I'll see what
Them M'zangwe can do about transport; get what force you can started
for Konkrook at once."

He left the booth. "Barney!" he called. "General Mordkovitz! Who's the
ranking officer in direct contact with the Eighteenth Rifles? Major
Falkenberg?"

"That's right."

"Well, tell him to get as many of his Kragans as he can spare down to
the equipment-park." He turned to Inez Malavez. "You call Jarman; tell
him what O'Leary reported, and tell him to get cracking on it. Tell
him not to let those geeks get any of that equipment onto
contragravity; knock it down as fast as they try to lift out with it.
And tell him to see what he can do in the way of troop-carriers or
lorri