e allowed to seem that the city has come under foreign rule.
And you must not change the laws, unless the people petition you to do
so, nor must you increase the taxes, and you must not confiscate the
estates of those who are put to death, for the death of parents is
always forgiven before the loss of patrimonies. And you should select
certain Skilkan nobles, and become the father of their young, and
above all, you must leave none of the young of Firkked alive, to raise
rebellion against you later."

Jonkvank nodded, deeply impressed. "By the gods, Karlok vonk Zlikdenk,
this is wisdom! Now it is to be seen why the likes of Firkked cannot
prevail against you, or against the Company as long as you are the
Company's upper sword-arm!"

Honesty tempted von Schlichten, for a moment, to disclaim originality
for the principles he had just enunciated, even at the price of trying
to pronounce the name of Niccolo Machiavelli with a geek-speaker. On
second thought, however, considerations of policy restrained him. If
Jonkvank ever heard of _The Prince_, nothing would satisfy him short
of an Ulleran translation, and von Schlichten would have been just
about as happy over an Ulleran translation of a complete set of
Bethe-cycle bomb specifications.

XII.

The Shadow of Niflheim

The sun slid lower and lower toward the horizon behind them as the
aircar bulleted south along the broad valley and dry bed of the Hoork
River, nearing the zone of equal day and night. Hassan Bogdanoff drove
while Harry Quong finished his lunch, then changed places to begin his
own. Von Schlichten got two bottles of beer from the refrigerated
section of the lunch-hamper and opened one for Paula Quinton and one
for himself.

"What are we going to do with these geeks,"--she was using the nasty
and derogatory word unconsciously and by custom, now--"after this is
all over? We can't just tell them, 'Jolly well played, nice game,
wasn't it?' and go back to where we were Wednesday evening."

"No, we can't. There's going to have to be a Terran seizure of
political power in every part of this planet that we occupy, and as
soon as we're consolidated around and north of Takkad Sea, we're going
to have to move in elsewhere," he replied. "Keegark, Konkrook, and the
Free Cities, of course, will be relatively easy. They're in arms
against us now, and we can take them over by force. We had to make
that deal with Jonkvank, or, rather, I did, so that will be a