s."

It's not a word you say, or hear, without a chill somewhere deep
inside. Not even me and I know a man can survive ionic weapons. I know
because I did once. Weapons so powerful I'm one of the last men alive
who saw them in action. Mathematically the big ones could wipe out a
Galaxy. I saw a small one destroy a star in ten seconds. I watched
Saltario for a long time. It seemed a long time, anyway. It was probably
twenty seconds. I was wondering if he had gone space-crazy for keeps.
And I was thinking of how I could find out what it was all about in time
to stop it.

I said, "A hundred Companies won't be enough. Saltario, have you ever
seen or heard what an ionic bomb can ..."

Saltario said, "Not weapons, peaceful power."

"Even that's out and you know it," I said. "United Galaxies won't even
touch peaceful ionics, too dangerous to even use."

"You can take a look first."

"A good look," I said.

I alerted Rajay-Ben and we took two squads and a small ship and Saltario
directed us to a tall mountain that jutted a hundred feet above the ice
of Nova-Maurania. I was not surprised. In a way I think I knew from the
moment Saltario walked into my office. Whatever it was Saltario was part
of it. And I had a pretty good idea what it was. The only question was
how. But I didn't have time to think it out any farther. In the
Companies you learn to feel danger.

The first fire caught four of my men. Then I was down on the ice. They
were easy to see. Black uniforms with white wedges. Pete O'Hara's White
Wedge Company, Earthmen. I don't like fighting other Earthmen, but a
job's a job and you don't ask questions in the Companies. It looked like
a full battalion against our two squads. On the smooth ice surface there
was no cover except the jutting mountain top off to the right. And no
light in the absolute darkness of a dead star. But we could see through
our viewers, and so could they. They outnumbered us ten to one.
Rajay-Ben's voice came through the closed circuit.

"Bad show, Red, they got our pants down!"

"You call it," I answered.

"Break silence!"

Surrender. When a Company breaks silence in a battle it means surrender.
There was no other way. And I had a pretty good idea that the Council
itself was behind O'Hara on this job. If it was ionics involved, they
wouldn't ransom us. The Council had waited a long time to catch Red
Stone in an execution offense. They wouldn't miss.

But forty of our men were down al