sent everything we've done for them."

"Yes, this spaceport proposition of King Orgzild of Keegark looks like
it, now doesn't it?" Harrington retorted. "He hates and resents us so
much that he's offered us a spaceport at his city...."

"What's it going to cost him?" Blount asked. "He furnishes the
land--sequestered from the estate of some noble he executed for
treason--and the labor--all forced. We furnish the structural steel,
the machine-equipment, the engineering. We get a spaceport we don't
really need, and he gets all the business it'll bring to Keegark.
Considering the fact that Rakkeed is a welcome guest at his embassy
here, and at the Royal Palace at Keegark, I'm beginning to wonder if
he isn't fomenting trouble for us here at Konkrook to make us willing
to move our main base to his city."

He made a move. Instantly, Harrington slashed out from the middle of
the board with one of his heavy-duty, all-purpose pieces and took a
piece, then moved again.

"Now look whose king's threatened!" he crowed.

"Yes, I see." Blount brought a piece clockwise around the board and
took the threatening piece, then moved again. "I hope you see whose
king's threatened, now."

Harrington swore, reached out to move a piece, and then jerked his
hand back as though the piece were radioactive. For a while, he sat
puffing his pipe and staring at the board.

"In fact, Orgzild's so sure that we're going to accept his offer that
he's started building two new power-reactors, to handle the additional
power-demand that'll result from the increased business," Blount
continued.

"Where's he getting the plutonium?" von Schlichten asked.

"Where can he get it?" Harrington replied. "He just bought four tons
of it from us, off the _City of Pretoria_."

"That's a hell of a lot of plutonium," Blount said. "I wonder if he
mightn't have some idea of what else plutonium can be used for,
beside generating power."

"Oh, God, I hope not!" Harrington exclaimed. "You're going to get me
started seeing burglars under the bed, next...."

"Maybe there are burglars," Blount said, pointing with his
cigarette-holder to Harrington's threatened king. "Can't you do
something about that, Sid?" Then he turned to von Schlichten. "Before
we get off the subject, how about those letters the Rev. Keeluk gave
to the Quinton girl?"

"All addressed to Skilkans known to be Rakkeed disciples and rabidly
anti-Terran," von Schlichten replied. "We radioed the list to