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.

* * * * *

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 the 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 slower
process, but we'll get it done in time. If I know that pair as well as
I think I do, Jonkvank and Yoorkerk will give us plenty of pretexts,
before long. Then, we can start giving them government by law instead
of by royal decree, and real courts of justice; put an end to the
head-payment system, and to these arbitrary mass arrests and
tax-delinquency imprisonments that are nothing but slave-raids by the
geek princes on their own people. And, gradually, abolish serfdom. In
a couple of centuries, this planet will be fit to admit to the
Federation, like Odin and Freya."

"Well, won't that depend a lot on whom the Company sends here to take
Harrington's place?"

"Unless I'm much mistaken, the Company will confirm me," he replied.
"Administration on Ullr is going to be a military matter for a long
time to come, and even the Banking Cartel and the m