any had the franchise for Niflheim, too; they'd had to take
that and agree to exploit the planet's resources in order to get the
franchise for Uller, which furnished a good quick measure of the
comparative merits of the two.

Ahead, the city of Konkrook sprawled along the delta of the Konk river
and extended itself inland. The river was dry, now. Except in spring,
when it was a red-brown torrent, it never ran more than a trickle, and
not at all this late in the northern summer. The aircar lost altitude,
and the hot-jet stopped firing. They came gliding in over the suburbs
and the yellow-green parks, over the low one-story dwellings and
shops, the lofty temples and palaces, the fantastically twisted
towers, following a street that became increasingly mean and squalid
as it neared the industrial district along the waterfront.

Von Schlichten, on the right, glanced idly down, puffing slowly on
his cigarette. Then he stiffened, the muscles around his right eye
clamping tighter on the monocle. Leaning forward, he punched Harry
Quong lightly on the shoulder.

"Circle back, sergeant; let's have a look at that street again," he
directed. "Something going on, down there; looks like a riot."

"Yes, sir; I saw it," the Chinese-Australian driver replied. "Terrans
in trouble; bein' mobbed by geeks. Aircar parked right in the bloody
middle of it."

The car made a twisting, banking loop and came back, more slowly.
Colonel Hideyoshi O'Leary was using the binoculars.

"That's right," he said. "Terrans being mobbed. Two of them, backed up
against a house. I saw one of them firing a pistol."

Von Schlichten had the handset of the car's radio, and was punching
out the combination of the Company guardhouse on Gongonk Island; he
held down the signal button until he got an answer.

"Von Schlichten, in car over Konkrook. Riot on Fourth Avenue, just off
Seventy-second Street." No Terran could possibly remember the names of
Konkrook's streets; even native troops recruited from outside found
the numbers easier to learn and remember. "Geeks mobbing a couple of
Terrans. I'm going down, now, to do what I can to help; send troops in
a hurry. Kragan Rifles. And stand by; my driver'll give it to you as
it happens."

The voice of somebody at the guardhouse, bawling orders, came out of
the receiver as he tossed the phone forward over Harry Quong's
shoulder; Quong caught it and began speaking rapidly and urgently into
it while he steered with t