y. Von
Schlichten returned to Gongonk Island, debating with himself whether
to declare a general amnesty or to set up a dozen guillotines in the
city and run them around the clock for a week. There were cogent
arguments for and against either procedure.

By 2100, the last organized resistance had been wiped out, a curfew
had been imposed, and peace of a sort restored. There was still the
threat from Keegark, but it was looking less ominous now than it had
the evening before. Von Schlichten and Paula were having dinner in the
Broadway Room, confident that there was nothing left to do that they
could do anything about, when the extension phone that had been
plugged in at their table rang.

"Colonel Quinton here," Paula identified herself into it, and listened
for a moment. "There has? When?... Well, where did it come from?... I
see. And the direction?... Anything else?"

Apparently there was nothing else. She hung up, and turned to von
Schlichten.

"The _Sky-Spy_ just detected a ship lifting out from Keegark, presumed
one of the Boer-class freighters, either the _Jan Smuts_ or the _Oom
Paul Kruger_. It was first picked up on contragravity at about a
hundred feet, rising vertically from near the Palace. The supposition
is the geeks had her camouflaged since the time Commander Prinsloo
first bombarded Keegark with the _Aldebaran_. That was about twenty
minutes ago; at last report, she's fifty miles north of Keegark,
headed up the Hoork River."

Von Schlichten started thinking aloud: "That could be a feint, to draw
our ships north after her, and leave the approach to Konkrook or
Kankad's open, but that would be presuming that they know about the
_Sky-Spy_, and I doubt that, though not enough to take chances on.
They know we have ground and ship-radar, and they may think they can
slip down the Konk Valley either undetected or mistaken for one of our
ships from North Ullr."

He picked up the phone. "Get me through on telecast to Air-Commodore
Hargreaves, aboard the _Procyon_," he said. "I'll take it in the
office; I'll be up directly." He rose. "Finish your dinner, and have
the rest of mine sent up," he told Paula.

Leaving the elevator, he rushed into the big headquarters room just as
contact was established with the _Procyon_, on station over the
north-western corner of Takkad Sea, between Kankad's Town and Keegark.
The Aldebaran, he knew, was west of Keegark; the _Northern Lights_,
now fitted with a pair of 155-mm