"He'd get away
with it for just twelve months--the time it would take to get the news
to Terra and for a Federation Space Navy task-force to get here. And
then, there'd be little bits of radioactive geek floating around this
system as far out as the orbit of Beta Hydrae VII."
"That's quite true," von Schlichten agreed. "The point is, does
Orgzild know it? I doubt if he even believes there is a Terra."
"Then where in Space does he think we come from?" Keaveney demanded.
"I believe he thinks Niflheim is our home world," von Schlichten
replied. "Or, rather, the string of orbiters and artificial satellites
around Niflheim. Where he thinks Niflheim is, I wouldn't even try to
guess."
"Yes. After he'd wiped us out, he might even consider the idea of an
invasion of Niflheim with captured contragravity ships," Hideyoshi
O'Leary chuckled. "That would be a big laugh--if any of us were alive,
then, to do any laughing."
"You don't really believe that, general?" Keaveney asked. His tone was
still derisive, but under the derision was uncertainty. After all,
von Schlichten had been on Ullr for fifteen years, to his two.
"Any question of geek psychology is wide open as far as I'm concerned;
the longer I stay here, the less I understand it." Von Schlichten
finished his brandy and got out cigarette-case and lighter. "I have an
idea of the sort of garbled reports these spies of his who spend a
year on Niflheim as laborers bring back.
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