hops, and the
maintenance-yard. On the terrain-board, the latter was now marked as
completely in Company hands. The ruins of the native-troops barracks
were still burning, and there was a twinkle of orange-red here and
there among the ruins of labor-camp. Much of the equipment for the
polar mines had already been shifted into defensible ground. The rest
of the circle was dark, except for the distant lights of Skilk, where
the nuclear power plant was apparently still functioning in native
hands.

Then, without warning, a spot of white light blazed into being
southeast of the Company area and southwest of Skilk, followed by
another and another. Instantly, von Schlichten glanced up at the row
of smaller screens, and on one of them saw the view as picked up by a
patrolling airjeep.

The army of King Firkked of Skilk had finally put in its appearance,
coming in two columns, one southward from Skilk and the other
northward along the west bank of the dry river. The former had crossed
over and joined the latter, about three miles south of the
Reservation. The scene in the screen was similar to the one he had,
himself, witnessed through his armament-sight. The Skilkan regulars
had been marching in formation, some on the road and some along
parallel lanes and paths. They had the look of trained and disciplined
troops, but they had made the same mistake as the rabble that had been
shot up on the north side of the Reservation. Unused to attack from
the air, they had all halted in place and were gaping open-mouthed,
their opal teeth gleaming in the white flare-light. However, before
the aircar had passed over them, the lead company of one regiment,
armed with Terran rifles, had begun firing.

In the big screen, it could be seen that Colonel Jarman had thrown
most of his available contragravity at them, including the
combat-cars, that had already started to form the second wave of the
attack on the mob to the north. Other flares bloomed in the darkness,
and the fiery trails of rockets curved downward to end in yellow
flashes on the ground.

The airjeep with the pickup circled back; the troops on the road and
in the adjoining fields had broken. The former were caught between the
fences which made Ulleran roads such death-traps when under
air-attack. The latter had dispersed, and were running away,
individually and by squads; at first, it looked like a panic, but he
could see officers signaling to the larger groups of fugitives t