" His face became less jovial.
"We had something pretty bad happen here, too," he said. "That
Konkrook Fencibles rabble of Prince Jaizerd's mutinied, along with the
others; they got into the hospital and butchered everybody in the
place, patients and staff. The Kragans got there too late to save
anybody, but they wiped out the Fencibles. Jaizerd himself was the
only one they took alive, and he didn't stay that way very long."
"How are you making out with your Civil Administration crowd?"
M'zangwe grimaced. "I haven't had to put any of them under actual
arrest, so far, but we've had to keep Buhrmann away from the
communications equipment by force. He wanted to call you up and chew
you out for not evacuating everybody in the North to Konkrook."
"Is he crazy?"
"No, just scared. He says you're going to get everybody on Ullr
massacred by detail, when you could save Konkrook by bringing them all
here."
"You tell him I'm going to hold this planet, not just one city. Tell
him I have a sense of my duty to the Company and its stockholders, if
he hasn't; put it in those terms and he may understand you."
* * * * *
By 0330, it was daylight; the attacks against the north-west corner of the
perimeter stopped entirely. Wallingsby had the three-hundred-odd Skilkan
laborers at work; he had gathered up all the tarpaulin he could find, and
had the two sewing-machines in the tentmaker's shop running on sandbags.
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