' a
swell time!"

"Talk sense," said Tommy, without even contempt in his tone.

* * * * *

Jacaro snarled.

"No sense actin' too big!" But the snarl encouraged Tommy, because it
proved Jacaro less confidant than he tried to seem. His next change of
tone proved it. "Aw, hell!" he said placatingly. "This is what I'm
figurin' on. These guys ain't used to fighting, but they got the
stuff. They got gases that are hell-roarin'. They got ships can beat
any we got back home. Figure out the racket. A couple big Tubes,
that'll let a ship--maybe folded--go through. A fleet of 'em floatin'
over N'York, loaded with gas--that white stuff y' can steer wherever
y' want it. Figure the shake-down. We could pull a hundred million
from Chicago! We c'd take over the whole United States! Try that on y'
piano! Me, King Jacaro, King of America!" His dark eyes flashed. "I'll
give y' Canada or Mexico, whichever y' want. Name y' price, guy. A
coupla months organizin' here, buildin' a big Tube, then...."

Tommy's expression did not change.

"If it were that easy," he said drily, "you wouldn't be bargaining.
I'm not altogether a fool, Jacaro. We want those women back. You want
something we've got, and you want it badly. Cut out the oratory and
tell me the real price for the return of the women, unharmed."

Jacaro burst into a flood of profanity.

"I'd rather Evelyn died from gas," said Tommy, "than as your filthy
Ragged Men would kill her. And you know I mean it." He switched to the
language of the cities to go on coldly: "If one woman is harmed, Rahn
dies. We will shoot down every ship that rises from her stages. We
will spray burning thermit through her streets. We will cover her
towers with gas until her people starve in the gas masks they've
made!"

The lean man in the tunic of Rahn snarled bitterly: "What matter? We
starve now!"

Tommy turned upon him as Jacaro whirled and cursed him bitterly for
the revealing outburst.

"We will ransom the women with food," said Tommy coldly--and then his
eyes flamed, "and thrash you afterwards for fools!"

* * * * *

He made a gesture to the Keeper of Foodstuffs. It was unconsciously an
authoritative gesture, though the Keeper of Foodstuffs was in the
state of affairs in Yugna the head of the Council. But that old man
spoke deliberately. The man from Rahn snarled his reply. And Tommy
turned aside as the bargaining went on. He cou