he same thing are equal to one another. Yes, I'd say so."

"All right," Dad said. "Say I'm Chief of Staff, or something. Oscar,
you and Joe and Corkscrew and the rest of you decide who's going to
take over-all command of the hunters. Casmir, you'll command your
workmen, and anybody else from the shipyards and engine works and
repair shops and so on. Sigurd, you and the Reverend, here, and
Professor Hartzenbosch gather up all the uptown people you can. Now,
we'll have to decide on how much force we need to scare Mort
Hallstock, and how we're going to place the main force that will
attack Hunters' Hall."

"I think we ought to wait till we see what Bish Ware can do," Oscar
said. "Get our gangs together, and find out where we're going to put
who, but hold off the attack for a while. If he can get inside
Hunters' Hall, we may not even need this demonstration at the
Municipal Building."

Joe Kivelson started to say something. The rest of his fellow ship
captains looked at him severely, and he shut up. Dad kept on jotting
down figures of men and 50-mm guns and vehicles and auto weapons we
had available.

He was still doing it when the fire alarm started.

16

CIVIL WAR POSTPONED

The moaner went on for thirty seconds, like a banshee mourning its
nearest and dearest. It was everywhere, Main City Level and the four
levels below. What we have in Port Sandor is a volunteer fire
organization--or disorganization, rather--of six independent
companies, each of which cherishes enmity for all the rest. It's the
best we can do, though; if we depended on the city government, we'd
have no fire protection at all. They do have a central alarm system,
though, and the _Times_ is connected with that.

Then the moaner stopped, and there were four deep whistle blasts for
Fourth Ward, and four more shrill ones for Bottom Level. There was an
instant's silence, and then a bedlam of shouts from the hunter-boat
captains. That was where the tallow-wax that was being held out from
the Co-operative was stored.

"Shut up!" Dad roared, the loudest I'd ever heard him speak. "Shut up
and listen!"

"Fourth Ward, Bottom Level," a voice from the fire-alarm speaker said.
"This is a tallow-wax fire. It is not the Co-op wax; it is wax stored
in an otherwise disused area. It is dangerously close to stored 50-mm
cannon ammunition, and it is directly under the pulpwood lumber plant,
on the Third Level Down, and if the fire spreads up to that, it