he other hand. Von Schlichten took one of
the five-pound spiked riot-maces out of the rack in front of him.
Themistocles M'zangwe had already drawn his pistol; he shifted it to
his left hand and took a mace in his right. The Nipponese-Irish
colonel, looking like a homicidally infuriated pixie, had an automatic
in one hand and a long dagger in the other.

Harry Quong and Hassan Bogdanoff were old Uller hands; they'd done
this sort of work before. Bogdanoff rose into the ball-turret and
swung the twin 15-mm's around, cutting loose. Quong brought the car in
fast, at about shoulder-height on the mob. Between them, they left a
swath of mangled, killed, wounded, and stunned natives. Then, spinning
the car around, Quong set it down hard on a clump of rioters as close
as possible to the struggling group around the two Terrans. Von
Schlichten threw back the canopy and jumped out of the car, O'Leary
and M'zangwe behind him.

There was another aircar, a dark maroon civilian job, at the curb; its
native driver was slumped forward over the controls, a short
crossbow-bolt sticking out of his neck. Backed against the closed door
of a house, a Terran with white hair and a small beard was clubbing
futilely with an empty pistol. He was wounded, and blood was streaming
over his face. His companion, a young woman in a long fur coat, was
laying about her with a native bolo-knife.

Von Schlichten's mace had a spiked ball-head, and a four-inch spike in
front of that. He smashed the ball down on the back of one Ulleran's
head, and jabbed another in the rump with the spike.

"_Zak! Zak!_" he yelled, in pidgin-Ulleran. "_Jik-jik_, you
lizard-faced Creator's blunder!"

The Ulleran whirled, swinging a blade somewhere between a big
butcherknife and a small machete. His mouth was open, and there was
froth on his lips.

"_Znidd suddabit!_" he screamed.

Von Schlichten parried the cut on the steel shaft of his mace.
"_Suddabit_ yourself, you geek bastard!" he shouted back, ramming the
spike-end into the opal-filled mouth. "And _znidd_ you, too," he
added, recovering and slamming the ball-head down on the narrow
saurian skull. The Ulleran went down, spurting a yellow fluid about
the consistency of gun-oil. Then, without wasting words, he maced
another of the things.

Ahead, one of the natives had caught the wounded Terran with both
lower hands, and was raising a dagger with his upper right. The girl
in the fur coat swung wildly, slashing the