es. "A subcrit display job, about
four miles over the city."

He laid the phone down and looked to the underside viewscreen. A
little later, a silvery shape dropped away from the ship's south
pole. The telescopic screen went off, and the unmagnified screen
darkened as the filters went on. Valkanhayn, aboard the other ship,
was shouting a warning about his own screens. The only unfiltered
screen aboard the _Nemesis_ was the one tuned to the falling
missile. The city of Eglonsby rushed upward in it, and then it went
suddenly dark. There was an orange-yellow blaze in the other
screens. After a while, the filters went off and the telescopic
screen went on again. He picked up the phone.

"Space Vikings calling Eglonsby; this is your last warning.
Communicate at once."

Less than a minute later, a voice came out of one of the speakers:

"Eglonsby calling Space Vikings. Your bomb has done great damage.
Will you hold your fire until somebody in authority can communicate
with you? This is the chief operator at the central State telecast
station; I have no authority to say anything to you, or discuss
anything."

"Oh, good, that sounds like a dictatorship," Harkaman was saying.
"Grab the dictator and shove a pistol in his face and you have
everything."

"There is nothing to discuss. Get somebody who has authority to
surrender the city to us. If this is not done within the hour,
the city and everybody in it will be obliterated."

Only minutes later, a new voice said:

"This is Gunsalis Jan, secretary to Pedrosan Pedro, President of
the Council of Syndics. We will switch President Pedrosan over as
soon as he can speak directly to the personage in supreme command
of your ships."

"That is myself; switch him to me at once."

After a delay of less than fifteen seconds they had President
Pedrosan Pedro.

"We are prepared to resist, but we realize what this would cost in
lives and destruction of property," he began.

"You don't begin to. Do you know anything about nuclear weapons?"

"From history; we have no nuclear power of any sort. We can find no
fissionables on this planet."

"The cost, as you put it, would be everything and everybody in
Eglonsby and for a radius of almost a hundred miles. Are you still
prepared to resist?"

The President of the Council of Syndics wasn't and said so. Trask
asked him how much authority his position gave him.

"I have all powers in any emergency. I think," the voice added
tonele