g sets to install on the
_Procyon_ and the _Aldebaran_, and another set for Kankad's Town.
Pickering and his people are still working, but they all look pretty
frustrated. They have Major Thornton, at the ammunition plant, doing
experimental work on chemical-explosive charges to bring the
subcritical masses together and hold them together till an explosion
can be produced; they're using most of the skilled electrical and
electronics people to work up a detonating device. That's why Kankad's
people are doing most of the detection-device work. Hargreaves is
fitting a lot of small craft-- combat-cars and civilian aircars--with
radar sets, to use for patrolling."

"That sounds good," von Schlichten said. "I'll be around and see how
things are, after I've had some breakfast."

He had breakfast at the main cafeteria, four floors down; there wasn't
as much laughing and talking as usual, but the crowd there seemed in
good spirits. He spent some time at headquarters, watching Keegark by
TV and radar. So far, nothing had been done about direct
reconnaissance over Keegark with radiation-detectors, but Hargreaves
reported that a couple of privately owned aircars were being fitted
for the job.

He made a flying inspection trip around the island, and visited the
farms south of the city, on the mainland, and, finally, made a sweep
in the command-car over the city itself. Reconnaissance in person was
an archaic and unprogressive procedure, and it was a good way to get
generals killed, but one could see a lot of things that would be
missed on TV. He let down several times in areas that had already been
taken, and talked to company and platoon officers. For one thing, King
Yoorkerk's flamboyantly named regiments weren't quite as bad as Paula
had thought. She'd been spoiled by the Kragans in her appreciation of
other native troops. They had good, standard-quality, Volund-made
arms; they were brave and capable; and they had been just enough
insulted by being integrated into Kragan regiments to try to make a
good showing.

By noon, resistance in the city was beginning to cave in. Surrender
flags were appearing on one after another of the Konkrookan rebel
strong-points, and at 1430, after he had returned to the Island, a
delegation, headed by the Konkrookan equivalent of Lord Mayor and
composed largely of prominent merchants, came across the channel under
a flag of truce to surrender the city's Spear of State, with abject
apologies for