e the
_Oom Paul Kruger_. Hargreaves had already learned of the advent of the
second freighter. He was unwilling to take the _Procyon_ off her
station until the _Aldebaran_ returned from the Konk Valley. In this,
von Schlichten concurred.

Somebody suggested that a drink would be in order. They had just
watched the all-but-certain death of three Terran officers, fifteen
Terran airmen, and ten Kragans, but they had all been living in too
close companionship with death in the past three days--or was it three
centuries--to be too deeply affected. And they had also watched, at
least for a day or so, the removal of the threat that had hung over
their heads. And they had seen proof that they had a defense against
King Orgzild's bombs.

They were still mixing cocktails when Pickering phoned in.

"Some good news, general, from Operation 'Hildegarde.' We ought to
have at least one bomb ready to drop by 1500 tomorrow, four or five
more by next midnight," he said. "We don't need to have cases cast. We
got our dimensions decided, and we find that there are a lot of big
empty liquid-oxygen flasks, or tanks, rather, at the spaceport,
that'll accommodate everything--fissionables, explosive-charges,
tampers, detonator, and all."

"Well, go ahead with it. Make up a few of them; as many as you can
between now and 2400 Sunday." He thought for a moment. "Don't waste
time on those practice bombs I mentioned. We'll make a practice drop
with a live bomb. And don't throw away the design for the cast case.
We may need that, later on."

XV.

A Place in my Heart for Hildegarde

The company fleet hung off Keegark, at fifteen thousand feet, in a
belt of calm air just below the seesawing currents from the warming
Antarctic and the cooling deserts of the Arctic. There was the
_Procyon_, from the bridge of which von Schlichten watched the
movements of the other ships and airboats and the distant horizon. The
_Aldebaran_ was ten miles off, to the west, her metal sheathing
glinting the red light of the evening sun. There was the _Northern
Star_, down from Skilk, a smaller and more distant twinkle of
reflected light to the north of _Aldebaran_. The _Northern Lights_ was
off to the east, and between her and _Procyon_ was a fifth ship;
turning the arm-mounted binoculars around, he could just make out, on
her bow, the figurehead bust of a man in an ancient tophat and a
fringe of chin-beard. She was the _Oom Paul Kruger_, captured by the
_P