Uller Uprising

n-Chief Fro

igadier-General Themistocles M'zangwe; little Colonel Hideyoshi O'Leary. Far in front of him, to the left, the horizon was lost in the cloudbank over Takkad Sea; directly in front, and to the right, the brown and gray and black flint mountains sawed into the sky until they vanished in the distance. Unseen below,

ded red eyes, and slit-like nostrils, and wide mouths filled with opalescent teeth. Except for their belts and equipment, they were completely naked; the uniform consisted of the emblem of the Chartered Uller Company stencil-painted on chests and backs. Clothing, to them, was unnecessary, either for warmth or modesty. As to the former, they were cold-blooded and could stand a temperature-range of from a hundred and twenty to minus one hundred Centigrade. Von Schlichten had seen them sleeping in the open with their bodies covered with frost or freezing rain; he had also seen them wade through boiling water. As to the second,

carried a bristle of 15-mm machine-guns, and two of the eight 50-mm rocket-tubes on either side were empty and freshly smoke-stained.

ant Garcia," he greeted. "

we're-all-human manner of Terran soldiers on e

then nodded toward the fired rocket-

with our pistols. We caught the second band in that little punchbowl place about a mile this side of Zortolk's Old Fort. There were only six of them; they were bunched together, feeding. Off one of their own gang, I'd say; the way we've been keeping them up in the high rocks, they've been eating inside the family quite a bit,

lmost six months, but the nobleman whose serfs had been eaten was practically accusing the Company of responsibility for the crime. "I'll see that Neeldink is informed. The more you do for these damned geeks, the more they expect from you.... When you get your vehicle re-ammoed, lieutenant, suppos

s. Oh, yes, and this good-for-nothing Konkrook Fencibles outfit of Prince Jaizerd's; they can be used for beaters, and to block escape routes." He turned back to Lieutenant Kendall and

-topped rectangle of masonry overlooking the pass, a gun covering each approach, and two more on the square keep to cover the rocky hogback on which the fort had been built, with the flagpole between them. Once that pole had lifted a banner of ragged black marsh-flopper skin bearing the

sir?" Harry

ere wasn't time for a visit to Zortolk's Old

nkrook, to

burn the forests clear back to the flint cliffs; by the time the burners reached the mountains, the new trees at the seaward edge would be ready to cut. Off to the south, he could see the dark green squares, where the hemlocks and Norway spruce had been planted by the Company. With a little chemical fertilizer, they were doing well, and they made better charcoal than the silicate-heavy native wood. That was the only natural fuel on Uller; there was no coal, of course, since fallen timber and even sta

voted to agriculture with the declining demand for charcoal, had neither moats nor walls. That was the Company, too; the huge shell-armored beasts had become virtually extinct in the Konk Isthmus now, since the introduction of bazookas and recoilless rifles. There see

, Hugin and Munin, and its wide grasslands and its evergreen forests that looked and even smelled like the pinewoods of Terra, or Baldur, with snow-capped mountains, and clear, cold lakes, and rocky rivers dashing under great vine-hung trees, or Freya, where the people were human to the last degree and the women were so breathtakingly beautiful-than a Company army general at twenty-five thous

one side blazingly hot and the other close to absolute zero, with a narrow and barely habitable twilight zone between. There was Mimir, swarming with a race of semi-intelligent quasi-rodents, murderous, treacherous, utterly vicious. Or Niflh

kle, 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 dw

tte. Then he stiffened, the muscles around his right eye clamping tighter on

t that street again," he directed. "Somethi

replied. "Terrans in trouble; bein' mobbed by geek

nd came back, more slowly. Colonel Hide

obbed. Two of them, backed up against a h

ching out the combination of the Company guardhouse on Gongonk

onkrook's streets; even native troops recruited from outside found the numbers easier to learn and remember. "Geeks mobbing a couple of Terrans

tly into it while he steered with the 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;

ht 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 ha

king 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

ike in front of that. He smashed the ball down on the back of on

gin-Ulleran. "Jik-jik, you li

etween a big butcherknife and a small machete. Hi

dabit!" he

nd into the opal-filled mouth. "And znidd you, too," he added, recovering and slamming the ball-head down on the narrow saurian skull. The

on the creature's neck. To one side, a native somewhat better dressed than the others, to the extent of a couple of belts with gold ornaments, drew a Terran automatic. Von Schlichten hurled his mace and drew

ything, even more vulnerable than a Terran. The native howled hideously, and von Schlichten, jumping over a couple of corpses, shoved the muzzle of his pistol into the creature'

pped his mace and swung the frail-looking man onto his back. Together, they struggled back to the command-car, von Schlichten covering the retreat with his pistol. Another rioter-a Zirk nomad from the

on tossed fragmentary corpses nearby, and another and another. Glancing quickly over his shoulder, he saw four combat-cars coming in, firing with 40-mm auto-cannon and 15-mm machine-guns. They swept between t

, stocked and sighted to conform to their physical peculiarities, with long, thorn-like, triangular bayonets. One platoon ran forward, dropped to one knee, and began firing rapidly into what was left of the mob. Fou

into side alleys, joyfully lancing and cutting down fleeing rioters, while others dismounted, three tossing their reins to a fourth, and went to work with their crossbows. Von Schl

f native infantry

people all right,

ting fresh belts into his guns. Then he saw that the Graeco-African brigadier and the Irish-Japanese colonel had gotten the wounded man into the car. The girl, having d

work; you must have those vehicles of yours

ital, right away," O'Leary repli

cely, captain. You'd better stay around with your Kragans and make sure that these geeks of King Jaikark's don't let the riot flare up again and get away from

late and tongue-clicker without which no Terran could do more than mouth a crude and barely compr

was propped up in the left corner of the seat, and Colonel O'Leary and Brigadier-General M'z

-cup in the door pocket next to you," he sai

ite side, with black hair and black eyes that quirked up oddly at the outer corners. Her nails w

general.... How di

l about everybody else. You're Dr. Paula Quinton; you're an extraterrestrial sociographer, and you're a field-agent for the Extraterrestrials' Rights Association, like M

usly, cough over the first mouthful

ere you doing in that district, anyhow?" he wanted to know. "I'd have thought Mohammed Ferri

man and labor leader," she replied. "I'm going to observe labor conditions at the North Pole mines in

straight face. Neither M'zangwe nor O'Leary had any such aid;

Of course, we were carrying pistols; they're part of this survival-kit you make everybody carry, along with the emergency-rations and the wate

still alive," von S

him. "I never in my life saw anything as beautiful a

autiful than those 40-mm's beginning to

boats, where the ten thousand-ton Oom Paul Kruger had just come in from Keegark, and the Company's one real warship, the cruiser Procyon, was lifting out for Grank, i

?" Hideyoshi O'Leary asked, trying not to sound official. "Was Keeluk with you all t

"How did you guess it? You see, a dog started barkin

he other officers echoed him, and on the

there are no dogs on Uller, except a few owned b

as calling the command car at the scene

t's Keeluk's house. Tell him to look for traces of Governor-General Harrington's collie, or any of the other terrestrial animals that have been disappearing-that goat, for instance, or those rabbits. And I want Kee

...?" the

to let you get away from there alive to report hearing that dog,

only gone fi

o action. Keeluk doesn't have radio or TV-we hope-but he h

s. He knows what our Association

Look, he has a lot of influence in that section. When you

ack into the house," M'zangwe put in. "An

ssed right. "But what's all the excitement about the dog?

ody stole it, and Keeluk was keeping it, and we want to know why. We don't like

was waiting, with a Terran interne and two Ulleran orderlies. T

y-looking bruises and bumps. A couple of abrasions, too, where those geeks grabbed you; they have hides

lot of it on yo

another thing. Those letters Keeluk was going to give y

et of her coat. "Yes

at them. There may be more to them than you