ny-oared barges, put out hastily
into the river; through binoculars they could see people scattering
from the surrounding fields, driving cattle ahead of them. By the
time they were over the city, nobody was in sight. They seemed
to have developed a pretty fair air-raid warning system in the
nine-hundred-odd hours in which they had been exposed to the
figurative mercies of Boake Valkanhayn and Garvan Spasso. It hadn't
saved them entirely; a section of the city had been burned, and
there were evidences of shelling. Light chemical-explosive stuff;
this city was too good a cow for even those two to kill before the
milking was over.

They circled slowly over it at a thousand feet. When they turned
away, black smoke began rising from what might have been pottery
works or brick-kilns on the outskirts; something resinous had
evidently been fed to the fires. Other columns of black smoke began
rising across the countryside on both sides of the river.

"You know, these people are civilized, if you don't limit the term
to contragravity and nuclear energy," Harkaman said. "They have
gunpowder, for one thing, and I can think of some rather impressive
Old Terran civilizations that didn't have that much. They have an
organized society, and anybody who has that is starting toward
civilization."

"I hate to think of what'll happen to this planet if Spasso and
Valkanhayn stay here long."

"Might be a good thing, in the long run. Good things in the long run
are often tough while they're happening. I know what'll happen to
Spasso and Valkanhayn, though. They'll start decivilizing, themselves.
They'll stay here for a while, and when they need something they
can't take from the locals they'll go chicken-stealing after it,
but most of the time they'll stay here lording it over their slaves,
and finally their ships will wear out and they won't be able to fix
them. Then, some time, the locals'll jump them when they aren't
watching and wipe them out. But in the meantime, the locals'll
learn a lot from them."

They turned the aircar west again along the river. They looked at a
few villages. One or two dated from the Federation period; they had
been plantations before whatever it was had happened. More had been
built within the past five centuries. A couple had recently been
destroyed, in punishment for the crime of self-defense.

"You know," he said, at length, "I'm going to do everybody a favor.
I'm going to let Spasso and Valkanhayn pe