things like that simply didn't
happen at Keegark.

The Prince Gorkrink then spoke briefly, in sympathy for the great and
good friend of all Ulleran peoples, Mohammed Ferriera, who had been
injured, and hoping that he would soon enjoy full health again. He
also managed to convey King Orgzild's pleasure at having obtained the
plutonium. Von Schlichten noticed that a few of his more recent
quartz-specks were slightly greenish in tinge, a sure sign that he
had, not long ago, been exposed to the fluorine-tainted air which men
and geeks alike breathed on Niflheim. When a geek prince hired out as
a laborer for a year on Niflheim, he did so for only one purpose--to
learn Terran technologies.

Gurgurk then announced that so enormous a crime against the friends of
His Sublime etcetera had not been allowed to go unpunished, signaling
behind him with one of his lower hands for the box to be brought
forward. The slaves carried it to the front, set it down, and opened
it, taking from it a rug which they spread on the floor. On this, from
the box, they placed twenty-four newly severed opal-grinning heads, in
four neat rows. They had all been freshly scrubbed and polished, but
they still smelled like crushed cockroaches.

The three Terrans looked at them gravely. A double-dozen heads was
standard payment for an attack in which no Terran had been killed.
Ostensibly, they were the heads of the ringleaders: in practice, they
were usually lopped from the first two-dozen prisoners or over-age
slaves at hand, without regard for whether the victims had even heard
of the crime which they were expiating. If the Extraterrestrial's
Rights Association were really serious about the rights of these
geeks, they'd advocate booting out all these native princes and
turning the whole planet over to the Company. That had been the Terran
Federation's idea, from the beginning; why else give the Company's
chief representative the title of Governor-General?

There was another long speech from Gurgurk, with the nobles behind him
murmuring antiphonal agreement--standard procedure, for which there
was a standard pun, geek chorus--and a speech of response from Sid
Harrington. Standing stiffly through the whole rigamarole, von
Schlichten waited for it to end, as finally it did.

They walked back from the door, whence they had escorted the
delegation, and stood looking down at the saurian heads on the rug.
Harrington raised his voice and called to a Kragan se