Coldest Girl In Coldtown

Available at alibris.com
( 4.7/5.0 ★ | 364 downloads )
-- Click the link to download --

https://click.linksynergy.com/link?id=*C/UgjGtUZ8&offerid=1494105.26
539780316213097&type=15&murl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.alibris.com%2Fsearch%2
Fbooks%2Fisbn%2F9780316213097
Coldest Girl In Coldtown

ISBN: 9780316213097
Category: Media > Books
File Fomat: PDF, EPUB, DOC...
File Details: 12.6 MB
Language: English
Website: alibris.com
Short description: Good Cover/Case has some rubbing and edgewear.
Access codes, CD's, slipcovers and other accessories may not be
included.

DOWNLOAD: https://click.linksynergy.com/link?id=*C/UgjGtUZ8&
offerid=1494105.26539780316213097&type=15&murl=http%3A%2F%2F
www.alibris.com%2Fsearch%2Fbooks%2Fisbn%2F9780316213097
 Coldest Girl In Coldtown

• Click the link: https://click.linksynergy.com/link?id=*C/UgjGtUZ8&offerid=1494105.2653978031621309

7&type=15&murl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.alibris.com%2Fsearch%2Fbooks%2Fisbn%2F9780316213097 to do
latest version of Coldest Girl In Coldtown in multiple formats such as PDF, EPUB, and more.

• Don’t miss the chance to explore our extensive collection of high-quality resources, books, and guides on
our website. Visit us regularly to stay updated with new titles and gain access to even more valuable
materials.
.
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Problem
Makers
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The Problem Makers

Author: Robert Hoskins

Release date: January 19, 2016 [eBook #50971]

Most recently updated: October 22, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROBLEM

MAKERS ***
 THE PROBLEM MAKERS

By ROBERT HOSKINS

Illustrated by MACK

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Galaxy Magazine August 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
They had only one mission in the Galaxy, with
its infinite problems—make more of 'em!

Clouds obscured the three moons as the men slipped into the
village. They eased the double-bitted axes out of their belts and felt
their way through the almost unrelieved blackness until their hands
met the soft yieldings of the door hangings. Waiting until the
whisper of leather gliding over the ground stopped, telling him
everyone was in position, Luke Royceton drew in a deep breath,
then suddenly screamed:
"Aiieeeee!"
At his banshee signal, the other men took up the cry. Somebody
kicked the banked coals of the cooking fire into life and stuck in a
handful of twisted grass torches, then moved from man to man,
handing them out. The men screamed again, touched their torches
to the over-hanging of the huts, then tore down the hangings and
leaped through the doors, torches flaming a path.
The interiors of the huts leaped to life. Forms hurtled by the men
and into the night as the pitch-caulked thatching blazed into an
inferno. The rightful inhabitants of the huts crashed into the tall
grass of the surrounding plains, the sounds of their passage quickly
dying away as fear lent wing to their rapidly fleeing heels.
The fires quickly burned through the thatching, sending little fingers
of flame dancing along the lashed saplings that supported the roofs.
Luke took one last look around the interior of his hut and started to
leave, when he spotted something wriggling under a pile of skins.
Crossing the room in three strides, he tore away the coverings and
grabbed the native child by the scruff of its neck. He wheeled on one
heel and retraced his passage. He got out of the door just as the
saplings gave up the ghost and the fiery mass crashed to the
ground.
Luke whistled and wiped sweat from his brow. The bronze head of
the axe caught and reflected the fires from its myriad beaten facets.
Using the head, he beat out several sparks that had landed on his
clothes, then turned his attention to the child who still dangled from
his other hand.
The child's eyes were rolled nearly into his head with his fright. Luke
grinned, baring his teeth. He brought the child up until their noses
were less than an inch apart. The fetid smell of the child's breath
made him choke. Yelping, the child twisted free and ran after its
already-departed parents.
Luke laughed and turned his attention to his team.
The men were all out now, watching the huts crack under the
intense heat within. One shuddered, then collapsed inward, sending
up choking clouds of dust as it smothered the flames. After a
moment, Luke whistled. Half of the men melted into the grass and
followed the natives, while the others gathered around him,
squatting and resting their axes on the ground. Luke waited until the
others returned to report no further sign of the villagers, then he
squatted himself, and accepted a canteen from someone. He drank
his fill, gasped, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and
handed the canteen back.
"It's hot," he said, conversationally.
"It'll be hotter before we're done," said one of the team. They were
all dressed in rough-cured skins and leather moccasins. The axes
were the only tool they carried. Faces thick with war paint and
grime, it was impossible to tell them from natives.
"Anybody hurt?" asked Luke. Disclaimers came from the various
members of the group. "Good." He stood up and stretched. "Well,
gentlemen, shall we be on our way?"
"Might as well."
Luke took his axe, twisted the unfinished handle a quarter-turn in his
socket, then held the head to his lips. "Team B," he said. "Mission
accomplished." He twisted the handle back and slipped the axe into
his belt. A few moments later, the soft chatter of rotors cut through
the air, and a copter dropped into the clearing by the cooking fire.
The team mounted by the dying glow of the fires. As soon as the
last man was in, the door swung shut and the copter took off into
the night.

Sam Carter eased the scratchy material of the ruffed collar away
from his neck, then shot his cuffs to return them to the socially
acceptable half-inch showing beyond his jacket sleeve. He sighed,
placed his hands on his knees and glanced for the umpteenth time
at the armored soldiers guarding the door between the anteroom
and Prince Kahl's private chambers. The afternoon sun dipped below
the level of the high window-slits, sending shadows scampering up
the walls.
Sam had been waiting since noon. His stomach was repeating its
rumbled protests against that interrupted meal. Prince Kahl had sent
word that Sam might wait upon his pleasure; quieting misgivings,
Carter had rushed to do just that.
He sighed again, and stifled a yawn. From the corner of his eye, he
watched the shadow line marching up the wall. When it touched the
cobwebby corner of the ceiling, a slave came in and lighted a pair of
oil lamps. The soot-heavy smoke they gave off quickly had Sam
wishing the room had been left in darkness.
Another interminable hour passed, during which he several times
repeated the operation with collar and cuffs, all the while envying
the guards their ability to remain in one position like frozen statues,
seemingly carved from the living rock of the palace. At last, just
when he had resigned himself to the probability of spending the
night in the anteroom, the inner door swung open and a
chamberlain beckoned.
"Prince Kahl will grant you a moment now."
Sam bowed his thanks, and followed the man into Kahl's chambers.
"Ah, my friend from the southern kingdoms!"
Prince Kahl was a lean, saturnine individual, uncomfortably aware
that the prime of life was slipping through his grasp while his father
obstinately held onto the throne. It was Kahl's considered opinion
that the old man had lived long enough. It rankled him to realize
that he had held the same opinions as a youth barely out of his
teens. The thirty intervening years had been spent devising and
trying methods to assure his succession; unfortunately his father had
twenty years before that to safeguard his own rule.
"How go the southern kingdoms, my friend?" Kahl waved a
particularly enticing fruit as Carter stopped short, a dozen paces
away.
"Tolerably well, your graciousness." He neglected to add that it had
been nearly a year since he had visited the supposed lands of his
birth. Kahl was fully aware how long Carter had been kept cooling
his heels. Palace protocol dictated how long foreign visitors might be
kept waiting. But even visiting royalty could not hope for an
audience in less than a month's time. In his role as ambassador,
Carter was happy that a year was all he had been kept waiting.

"Your lord and master's gifts were received," said Kahl. "You may
inform him of my royal gratitude."
"My humble thanks, your graciousness." Sam's mouth watered as
Kahl polished off the one fruit and selected another from a platter
born by a manservant. Despite his now-long stay on the planet, Sam
still could not understand why women were given no role at all in
society, even as slaves.
"Not at all, not at all," said Kahl. "Now tell me. What is it that
brought you so far from your home lands to grace my humble
presence?"
"The usual business of politic, your graciousness," said Sam, growing
weary of the necessity to repeat the title with every reply to Kahl's
words. He also wished for a chair, despite the fact that he had been
sitting all afternoon. He felt like a naughty schoolchild, standing
always in the man's presence. "Trade treaties, mutual armament
pacts, the like."
"Ummm, so. You've discussed them with my ministers?"
"They have permitted me this honor and, if I may be so bold, found
a great deal to our mutual liking. Our countries are indeed far
separated, and the journey between arduous. I find much in your
provinces in the way of technology and armaments that we totally
lack. By the same token, I have thought of a few inconsequential
things which might serve to ease your royal burdens, if but brought
from my lands."
"Possible, possible," said Kahl. "Of course, I have a large college of
tinkerers and mechanics who probably would have produced the
little toys you speak of in their own good time. But why duplicate
effort, eh? They are lazy dolts who grumble at my royal largesse as
it is." He chortled lustily, although Sam could see nothing even
remotely humorous in his statement. But he was well-schooled in
the idiocies of diplomacy; he laughed dutifully.
"But come!" said Kahl. "Enough of childish prattle! You carry another
load in your thoughts, my southern friend. Have out with it!"
"Your graciousness?"
"You needn't pretend," he said, chortling again. "My ministers are
like the winds. They cannot keep a single thing to themselves, but
instead need spread it over the far reaches of the entire world.
You've been talking—foolishly perhaps—but I have perceived a
certain sense within your nonsense, and I must confess that your
words have aroused my interest. You have a plan to see me king.
Now out with it, lest I make you a gift of you to my torturer. He can
remove anything—including stubborn vocal cords!"
"You do me undeserved honor, graciousness," said Sam.
"Undoubtedly. And you begin to weary me."
"Very well." Sam sighed. "I must admit that my tongue is too loose
for my own general welfare. It is true that I once thought of
something mildly amusing while passing long evening hours with
one of your ministers. But it was mere idle dreaming, no more."
"You prattle long, southerner." Kahl's eyelids lowered suspiciously. He
picked up a silver knife and began paring his nails, scattering the
shavings suggestively in Sam's direction. "Perhaps you do not want
to see me king?"
"There is none so deserving of the honor as you," said Sam. "But
while you laugh at the utter childishness of my ideas, please
remember that you insisted...."

The Ehrlan delegate to the Central Worlds Conference was well past
the entrance to the Park when the pudgy little man caught up with
him, sides heaving from the unaccustomed strain of running.
"Citizen Lund!" he cried, panting. "Please wait!"
Lund turned and eyed the little man suspiciously. The fellow was a
stranger, and therefore automatically under suspicion. "Yes?"
"A moment of your valuable time, Citizen. Please? I assure you, you
have nothing to fear from me. I am not a Yanoian." The name
spattered out acidly.
"Indeed?" said Lund. "And just who, then, are you?" There was a
vague sensation of familiarity troubling the back of his mind. The
omnipresent watchdog in his subconscious pounced instantly on the
feeling, magnifying it, turning it inside out and shaking it around, but
drawing no satisfaction from the act.
"A friend, Citizen. You must believe that. I can't explain further right
now—time is too precious." He grabbed Lund's arm and started
tugging him back towards the Park entrance. "Please? I beg you,
come."
"Oh—very well." He gave in ungraciously, following the man until
they were just inside the Park. Then Lund stopped, digging his heels
into the gravel of the walk. The man looked back at him.
"Please, Citizen!" he urged. "We don't have much time!"
"So far as I'm concerned, you don't have any time at all, unless you
tell me right now who you are and what this is all about."
"Not here!" he cried, aghast, as he glanced nervously around at the
many people entering and leaving the Park. A pair of Conference
monitors stopped just outside the gate, fingering their stun-beamers
as they eyed the actions of the two men. They started to move into
the violable hundred-foot circle this side of the gate. The little man
moved quickly, grabbing Lund again and forcibly pulling him beyond
the protection of the monitors. Their skins tingled as they went
through the shimmering haze of the force screen. The monitors
stopped just in time to avoid touching the screen, while Lund and
the little man hurried down a path that wound into a copse of widdy
trees from Lund's own homeworld, Ehrla.
The widdy tendrils stopped their aimless flowing through the trees
and curved down and around the two men, tips melting into the
ground and tendrils broadening into wide blades that sheltered and
shielded the pair from possible watchers.
"Now!" said Lund, shaking the other man's hand from his angrily.
"Perhaps you will do me the honor of telling me who you are and
just what in the name of the Seven Holy Suns this idiocy is all
about?"
"A matter of the gravest urgency, Citizen! You must not present your
plans for redistribution of Sector protectorates to this Conference!"
"What?" Lund stared at him in disbelief. "And just how did you learn
of the plans I intend to present to the Conference—I will present, at
this afternoon session? Something smacks of treachery!"
"Never mind how I learned, Citizen. The important thing is the Yano
delegation also knows! They plan to scuttle you before you have a
chance to speak. After that, they'll cut you into little pieces and
devour you!"
"You're insane, man!" Lund started to reach for the widdy tendrils.
"Don't! You must not present your plans to the Conference, Citizen."
A new tone had crept into the man's voice: a strength that belied
the pudginess and general clownishness of the figure. Lund turned
slowly, and found himself staring at a stunner, the winking red of the
telltale showing that it was set to lethal bands.
"Wha...." He gulped his adam's apple back down into his throat.
"How did you get that into the Park? The force screens aren't
supposed to pass weapons."
"There are ways, Citizen," the man said, grinning. No longer did he
seem clownish. "Many so-called impossible things are quite simple, if
only you have access to the proper people and controls."
"What do you really want?" Lund tried to hide his fright, but he was
uncomfortably certain that it was radiating out from him,
broadcasting to the entire world that Citizen Lund was scared silly.
"I told you, Citizen. You must not present your plans to the
Conference."
"But why?" he wailed, in frustration. "Give me a logical reason!"
"The greater good, Citizen." With those cryptic words, the man
pressed the stud of the beamer. Lund gasped, as a giant hand closed
around his heart, then collapsed to the ground in a strange dying
parody of slow motion. Just before the clouds of eternity shut away
his vision, he at last recognized the man.
Himself!

II

John Reilly was tired, intensely tired, beyond any feeling of

exhaustion he had ever known.
The clock in his desk chimed once. He sighed and picked up his
lecture notes, stuffing them into a scarred and battered case that he
had been carrying since his student days at the Academy. He cast
one weary glance around the cluttered office, then steeled himself
into a passable imitation of military carriage as he left for the lecture
hall.
The Cadet Sergeant-Major outside his door leaped to attention only
a little less quickly than his regular service counterpart. Reilly
returned their salutes and fell in behind them.
The lecture hall—gymnasium, really; the Academy was perennially
overcrowded—was crowded, as usual. The eager young cadets filled
the fifty rows of backless benches, while the overflow squatted and
stood at the rear until it was impossible for a midget to find room to
thread his way through the crowd. Reilly's class was well-tended for
its honest popularity, not just because it was compulsory. There
were many "compulsory" lectures in the curriculum that counted
themselves proud to find half their audience in attendance.
Reilly stopped in the wings of the stage, listening for a moment to
the comfortable discordances of the student band tuning their
instruments. The regular service non-com peered through the
hangings, catching the bandmaster's eye. The tuning stopped, and
the band swung into a medley of old Academy drinking songs. Reilly
smiled, as he remembered happier days when he had participated
lustily in the drinking that went along with such music.
From the drinking songs, the band struck up the National Anthem.
The noise the cadets made in rising nearly drowned out the music.
After the last strains had been permitted to fade away, the
bandmaster raised his baton once more and the opening bars of Hail
to the Chief! filled the hall. The Sergeants-Major stepped out onto
the stage, Reilly following, case clasped loosely between elbow and
side.
They passed in front of the half-dozen visitors and moved to either
side of the podium, turning until they were facing each other, the
regular service man on the right. They snapped into a salute,
followed by the entire audience. Reilly lay his case on the podium,
turned and bowed to the visitors, then faced the audience again and
returned the salute.
Immediately two thousand arms dropped to their owners' sides and
the cadets resumed their seats.
Reilly unzipped his case and drew out his notes.
He arranged them carefully on the podium, although he knew that at
no time during the next hour would he so much as glance at them
again. The case stowed away under the podium, he took a deep
breath and placed his hands flat on the podium's surface.
Technicians in the control booth over the far end of the hall trained
parabolic mikes on his lips, waiting for him to begin the lecture as he
had begun hundreds of other preceding lectures, before audiences
much like this. The faces might change; the uniforms were the
same, and so were the underlying feelings of the wearers of the
uniforms, year in and year out.
"The greater good for the greater number!"
The cadets let out a mutual sigh, none aware that breath had been
held.
"A motto, gentlemen: merely a motto. Like Ad Astra per Aspera, E
Pluribus Unum or Through These Portals Pass the Most Wonderful
Customers in the Galaxy." An appreciative titter ran through the
audience.
"But what is a motto?" continued Reilly, warming to his subject,
overly familiar though it was. "It's more than just a snappy way of
stringing words together. It has a meaning. Often the meaning, such
as in the commercial example I just gave, is on the frivolous side.
But more often there is something intently serious behind a motto.
Ad Astra—'To the Stars.' For centuries this has been almost a religion
for men, as our ancestors broke the bonds of a single planet and
spread out into the galaxy. Libraries have been written of the
heartbreaks and joys, the sorrows and jubilations that have been
found in the far reaches of space.
"E Pluribus Unum—'United We Stand.' Even older and, if possible,
dearer to the hearts of men. Our very government is based on the
essential concept contained in these three words from the past.
"'The greater good for the greater number'. If government runs on
one motto, then civilization is based on this!"

Team B was dead on its feet when the copter finally returned to
Base with the first rosy glow of dawn lightening the horizon. They
stumbled to the ground, as sorry a looking group as Luke Royceton
had ever seen. Their masquerade of grime and war paints was
nearly obscured by an honest layer of general dirt. They filed into
wardrobe and stripped off their clothes, leaving them in ragged piles
on the floor. Then they hit the showers, luxuriating under the needle
sprays and the caress of soap sliding over their skin.
The discarded costumes were gone when they emerged, feeling
closer to human, twenty minutes later. In place of the animal hides
were shorts, doublets and the calf-length boots of Base-centered
personnel.
All were more than happy to be back in uniform.
Luke stopped outside wardrobe for a moment, then started towards
Headquarters, a building distinguished from the dozen other prefabs
of Base only by the pennant flying from the peak. The buildings
were arranged in an irregular circle around the copter field, nestled
in the most hidden valley of the planet's single range of hills high
enough to be graced with the name of mountains. The highest peak
in the range, visible over the one directly behind Headquarters,
toward barely a thousand feet.
On a world less primitive, the range would never have served its
present duty.
The world was primitive, however. Man had advanced but a few
faltering steps beyond the level of the cave. Ecology had estimated
the native human population not to exceed three million people over
the entire globe, and cheerfully admitted that their estimate was
made with every benefit of doubt given to the natives. Quite possibly
not even half that number roamed the vast plains of the temperate
zones, or breeded in the opulence of the equatorial jungles. As yet,
population pressures had not driven men into the colder climes of
the north and south. None had been spotted more than five hundred
miles from the equator.
Luke checked in with the Orderly Room before reporting on to the
debriefing room. He slumped onto a couch and propped his feet on
a low coffee table. The other four team commanders were there
ahead of him. One brought him a cup of coffee. He accepted it with
thanks, and inhaled the bitter smell of the brew before draining half
of it. The fiery liquid burned into his stomach and scorched away
some of the tensions built up during the night.
"Rough night, Luke?" asked Andy Singer, sitting next to him.
"The roughest. We hit seventeen villages between sunset and
sunrise."
"That is a load. My team only hit seven. But you were working the
big river stretch, weren't you?" Luke nodded, as he sipped again at
his coffee. "I thought so. We were lucky. We had the west plains.
There isn't too much water over there, couple little creeks and a few
holes. These locals don't stray too far from water."

"We hit half a dozen good-sized places," said Luke. "One of them
must have had thirty-five families. For a minute, I thought we were
going to have to kill a few of them, but it ended up okay. Nobody
hurt, except for one of my boys who stayed a second too long in a
hut." He chuckled. "Got the seat of his pants burned off—a new kid,
just out from the Academy. The rest of the night, he was the fastest
man I had."
"Proves what I said about water. Biggest place I hit had seven
houses, and most of them only had two or three."
Luke started to say something more, but just then the door opened
and the Base Commandant came in. The Team commanders stood
up respectfully, but none had the energy to properly snap to
attention. He smiled as he mounted the low platform to the front of
the room.
"At ease, gentlemen." Gratefully, the commanders sat back down
and resumed their earlier positions of comfort. The Commandant
poured himself a glass of water from a ready pitcher and drank it,
then gave his full attention to the room.
"First, gentlemen, let me congratulate you on a successful night's
operation. I congratulate all of you, but particularly Commander
Royceton and Team B. They rolled up the enviable total of seventeen
villages destroyed."
Luke flushed, feeling like a fresh-out-of-Academy Cadet as the others
raised their coffee cups in his direction.
"None of you spent the evening slacking, of course," continued the
Commandant. He was a middle-aged man; the empty sleeve pinned
to his shoulder told why he had been booted out of field duty while
men twenty years his senior were still leading teams. "Total score for
the night: fifty-seven villages. Commander Royceton merely had
more fertile area to work in. As we move out from the Base I know
you will all have equal opportunities to prove your prowess with the
torch." An appreciative murmur ran through the little group.
"Now I know you're all tired, gentlemen, and anxious to hit the sack.
I won't keep you much longer. I just want to emphasize the
importance of our mission on this world. Many of your men don't like
making these raids on the natives. They would rather be roaming
the far starlanes, putting down pirates and other glorious deeds of
derring-do. But you men are not cadets; there isn't a one of you
without twenty years field service time. You know the real glory
comes from satisfaction in a job well done. It is up to you to transfer
that feeling of satisfaction to the malcontents within your ranks.
Tonight you go out again; and you will continue to do so until every
single village on this planet has been razed to the ground! If so
much as one single village is permitted to escape, then we have
failed. I do not like failure; you do not like failure. Working together,
we can see to it that failure as a word disappears from the language.
I thank you, gentlemen. Dismissed." He stepped down and strode
rapidly from the room. Behind him the audience rose and burst into
talk.

III

Sam Carter moaned silently. He tried for the hundredth time since
the journey began to shift his legs into a position where the insides
would not be rubbed raw by the rough hair of his horse-like mount.
He resolved for the dozenth time that one of the "inventions" he
would import from the southern provinces would be a good,
comfortable saddle.

Another would be silk; the rough fabrics worn by Kahl's subjects

were a fair substitute for the mount's hide.
"Ho, southerner!" Prince Kahl wheeled his mount back from the head
of the column and waited until Sam had caught up, then he fell in
beside him. "How goes it? Does my second favorite mount suit you
well?"
"Very well indeed, graciousness," said Sam. "I cannot in honesty
recall when I've had a more—ouch!—instructive ride!"
"Good!" Kahl leaned over and slapped him on the shoulder. "You'll be
glad to know we've but three more hours to go before reaching the
summer palaces."
"Only, uh, three more hours?" The sinking sensation in Sam's
stomach had nothing at all to do with the undulating motion of his
beast. "Ah, that is good news, your graciousness. We'll be there
almost before we know it."
Sam wished Kahl would go away and leave him to his misery, but
the prince seemed disposed to talk. "I think there will be many
surprised faces in my father's court tonight. Eh, southerner?" He
chuckled, and then burst into raucous laughter as he considered the
idea further. "And to think, it will all be perfectly legal! You have the
papers safe, my friend?"
"Yes, your graciousness," said Sam, sighing and patting his
saddlebags.
"Good! Don't lose them—I'd hate to see you missing your head!" He
laughed again, while Sam's stomach turned several more flipflops.
"The sight of blood always did make me sick."
There were sixteen men in the mounted party, including a dozen of
Kahl's private guard, the captain of the troop and the High Priest of
the Sun God, the nation's officially sponsored religion. The High
Priest was a little old man, bent over more from age than from the
discomforts of the journey. Originally Sam had planned for one more
member, but that had become unnecessary when he learned that
the High Priest was also President of the Royal College of
Chirurgeons. The latter role was even more important to his plans
than the former. Now all that worried Sam was the possibility that
the priest might not live to the end of the journey. He was inflicted
with a hacking cough that sent chills racing up and down Sam's
spine every time he went into a fit.
Kahl grew weary of bantering small talk with a man really fit to come
up with witty replies. He wheeled his horse again and dropped back
to the end of the column for a moment, saying something to the
High Priest, then he spurred his mount back to the head of the line,
falling into his original position beside the Captain of the Guard. The
two men were soon lost in reminiscences that had bored Sam to
tears, every time he had been an unwilling audience.

Another hour passed miserably, while the sun mounted to the zenith
and began the long summer afternoon drop back down to the
horizon. The members of the Guard and Kahl pulled short stubby
loaves of bread and cheese from their saddle bags and munched as
they rode on, washing the food down with vigorous pulls at the
wine-skins that took the place of water canteens on the planet. Sam
had first thought the constant imbibing of alcohol to be a national
vice. Then he ran tests on half a dozen waterholes. Thereafter he
drank wine himself.
Now, however, he was completely without an appetite. Looking back
over his shoulder, he saw that the priest was in the same boat.
Suddenly, without knowing why, he pulled his mount up and waited
until the priest caught up with him, then fell in at the end of the
column.
"How goes it, Reverence?"
The priest looked up, watery eyes registering surprise at his
company. "Oh, southerner." He broke into one of his coughing
spasms. "Ahhh, not well, southerner. Not well at all. The Sun God
does not ride with me this day—not that he's deserted me, you
understand: he never rides with me. The Sun God has more sense
than a foolish old man who should be staying home in the comfort of
his apartments, not galivanting around the country-side like a frisky
kitten."
"I wish he had imparted some of his wisdom to me," said Sam. "I
confess I feel as you look, Reverence. No disrespect intended,
believe me. It's just that the ardors of this journey have taken much
toll from both of us. And I swear, by the Sun God himself, you are
bearing up much better than I."
"A man who has traveled as long and as far as you talking this,
southerner?"
"It's the way you travel, Reverence. The greatest part of my journey
was by ship." It had been; Sam merely neglected to specify that it
was a spaceship. "Ocean travel has its own peculiar discomforts, but
for myself, I'll take it every time."
"Tell me, southerner," said the priest, "why do you make this trip?"
"Prince Kahl wished it," he replied.
"Ah, but there is more to this than lies on the surface. Why should
Kahl bring you, a stranger and a subject of another house, along on
a venture that may well cast the future course of events for this
entire nation?"
"Prince Kahl seems to feel that, ah, I might, because of my
experiences in other lands, serve him in some minor capacity of
usefulness." Sam chose his words with care. The old man was
entirely too observant for his liking.
"Kahl is an astute man," said the priest. "However, he is also a
hungry man, and such a man on the verge of starvation will eat
things that in more normal circumstances he would pass up without
so much as a first look. Ideas are much like food, southerner."
"The philosophers of my country have a saying, Reverence. 'Man
does not live by bread alone.'"
"Much wisdom is afloat in the world, disguised in strange ways."
With that, the priest went into another coughing spell, after which
he refused to pick up the threads of the conversation. Carter gave
up, and spurred his mount back to his original place in the column.

The rest of the trip passed in, for Sam, self-commiseration. The
lower the sun sank, the hotter the temperature seemed to climb.
Several times he found himself with wineskin raised to lips. The
native beverage was little stronger than the plain water he would
have preferred, but even so he found himself more than a little tipsy
by the time they crested a low range of hills and saw the summer
palaces nestled by the side of a lake in the valley below.
The column dismounted in an inner courtyard, and Kahl, Carter and
the High Priest strode past the protesting chamberlain into the King's
private apartments. The King was lying on a couch, eating fruits
served by a manservant and listening to poetry being read to him.
He looked up when the trio came in.
"My son! This is indeed an unexpected honor. What brings you from
the city on a day so hot as this one?" He smiled, but his eyes were
sharp.
"Greetings, Father," said Kahl, bowing low. "I bring you important
news from the Council of Priests. Reverence!"
"Your Most Graciousness." The old man was already nearly doubled
over. When he bowed, Sam half expected to hear his forehead crack
the tiles of the floor.
"Well, Reverence?" The king accepted another fruit and sucked on it,
keeping a watchful eye on his son. He suspects something! Sam
thought.
The High Priest produced a scroll from his robes and ceremoniously
broke the seal. Unrolled, it was short for the dynamite it contained.
"Your Most Gracious Person," he read. "The Council of Priests, meet
and determined in the Holy Temple of the Sun God this fifth day of
the seventh moon of the fifty-first year of the reign of Obar, King,
announce to all and sundry within the domains of Obar, King, that he
has incurred the wrath and displeasure of the Holy God, the Sun
God, and henceforth from this day shall no more be known as Obar,
King, but as father of Kahl, King."
He let the scroll snap back into its cylinder, bowed again, then
handed the scroll to Obar. "Your graciousness." Then he turned to
Kahl. "Your Most Graciousness." One final return to Obar. "One more
message from the Council, your graciousness. They hope you will
accept their eternal pleasure and gratitude for the excellence of your
reign."

All during the reading, Obar had been staring at the High Priest, a
ghost smile half-crinkling the corners of his mouth. The half-eaten
fruit now fell to the pavement with a sodden plop! He licked his lips.
"This.... This is some sort of a joke?"
"No joke, Father," said Kahl, a little too heartily for Sam's liking.
"But how?" Obar shook his head. "How dare you?"
"I'm merely exercising my duty to our subjects, Father. You've grown
old. You're no longer capable of carrying out the duties of king."
"No." He refused to believe. "You ... you have no right. I am king!
How can you.... How can you just walk in here and tell me that I'm
not? What gives you this right?"
"The same source that made you king in the first place," said Kahl.
"The Sun God."
"Nonsense! There is no Sun God!"
The High Priest gasped and covered his eyes. "Blasphemy!"
"Guards!" Obar pried himself up. "Guards! Arrest these maniacs!"
Feet clumped outside, then turned into the chamber. Sam relaxed,
unaware that he had been holding his breath, knowing that his plans
were going through after all. The men who came in were the same
who had escorted them from the city, Kahl's own private guards.
The captain turned to Kahl and bowed low. "You called, Your Most
Graciousness?"
"Yes. Take this blithering idiot away."
The captain bowed again, and gestured. Two of his men grabbed the
former king by the arms and carried him away, screaming.
"Ho, southerner!" Kahl sat down on his father's couch and gestured.
The manservants had been cowering in the background; they came
forward now and touched their foreheads to the ground. Kahl took a
fruit and bit into it, letting the juice trickle down his chin.
"It worked," said Kahl, swallowing. "By the Sun God, it worked!" He
slapped his knee. "I confess, southerner, when first I heard your
plans, I thought you daft indeed. But it worked! I'm king!"
"I felt certain it would," said Sam, carefully omitting the title of
respect. It passed unnoticed. More sure of himself, he continued,
"After all, the idea was inherent in the very structure and strictures
of your government. Your divine position comes from the Sun God.
He should be able to remove it as easily as he grants it."
"True," said Kahl. "Howsomever, there shall be some changes made
in that respect, once I have consolidated my position. Oh, I delude
myself not in thinking that the battle is over, my friend. But the
hardest part has been won."
"I've been thinking," said Sam, slowly.
"Well, keep it not to yourself!" said Kahl. "If any more of your ideas
prove as useful to me as the last, then you have a glorious future
indeed."
"My thoughts are, I'm afraid, roaming rather far afield. But take
them for what they might be worth. You are king of this nation now,
Kahl; and a very able king you shall be. Why limit the benefits of
your rule to this one nation? Why not let the rest of the world know
the joys of your rule?"
"Ummm?" He squinted, one eye closed. "You think it might work
out?"
"Why not?" And the Sun God help us all! he added to himself.

IV

The chambers were crowded as the delegates, alternates and just

plain onlookers poured in for the afternoon session of the Central
Worlds Conference. Two hours before the meeting was due to begin,
an astute member of the press, long used to such functions,
observed that there would undoubtedly be a record broken before
the day was over. And it was easy to see why: all eyes were trained
on the spot low in the tiers with the Ehrlan pennant floating
overhead.
As yet, the central figure of all the interest had not arrived, although
the rest of the Ehrlans were already in their seats and looking
anxiously up the aisles towards the bank of elevators. An elevator
would open from time to time, to disgorge a few late arrivals. But
the man they expected was not yet among them. Below, on the
chamber floor, the presiding secretary was mounting to the rostrum
and arranging his papers.
"Where the devil can he be!" said Citizen Evrett to Citizen Sterm, the
second ranking member of the delegation.
"God only knows! You don't suppose something has ... happened?"
"How could it, here in the heart of the city? He only had to come
one block from the hotel. You've been watching too many thrillers,
Citizen—I hope!"
"Well, we have to do something. The session will be starting in a few
minutes. If he isn't here, someone else will have to make the
presentation."
"Who?"
"I don't know. How about you, Citizen?"
"Now, wait a minute!" said Evrett. "What's the matter with you,
Citizen? You're the logical choice. You rank second in the group."
"I wouldn't dare," admitted Sterm. "What if I should bobble things?
I'd never be able to live it down. I wouldn't even dare go home. My
wife is Lund's half-sister, you know."
"I'd forgotten. But somebody has to do it, if he doesn't get here.
This is the only opportunity we'll have this decade. If we have to
wait another ten years, we may as well forget the matter
altogether."
"We can't do that!" protested Sterm. "We've worked too long and
too hard on this plan. It's the only fair solution anyway. The other
worlds will never accept anything else."
"Some of them may not want to accept this one, when they hear all
of the details. You must admit, we haven't been too easy on some of
your fellow members. They.... Here comes Arko. Maybe he found out
something."

A junior member of the delegation came panting down the aisle,

shaking his head when he saw the others' eyes on him. "Sorry,
Citizens," he said, as soon as he was within the Ehrlan area. "He left
the hotel over an hour ago. No one has seen a sign of him since."
"Well, that tears it," said Evrett, just as the presiding secretary
struck his gavel on the little wooden block, announcing the opening
of the session. "Who has the copy of the plans?"
"Here," said Sterm, digging the papers from his case.
"I'll make the presentation myself...."
"Just a minute, Citizen!" said Arko. "Look! Here he comes now!"
They all turned and looked at the pudgy figure ambling slowly down
the aisle, nodding to greetings that came from all sides. The missing
man smiled and shook hands with a couple of the onlookers, before
entering the area and taking his seat at the head of the delegation.
"Citizen Lund!" cried Sterm, as though speaking to a wayward child.
"Where in the name of the Seven Suns have you been?"
"Why, it's a beautiful day, Citizens," explained Lund. "I thought I'd
take a stroll in the Park. There's quite a large Ehrlan section, you
know. Makes one quite homesick to hear the singing flowers
serenading the passerby. I can't wait to get back home again."
"If you hadn't shown up, none of us would have had the nerve to go
home!"
"Why, Citizen Sterm!" Lund seemed amused by some private joke.
"Whatever made you think I wouldn't be here? This is an important
day for Ehrla, remember?"
"How could we forget?" said Evrett.
The presiding secretary fiddled with his bank of microphones for a
moment, in the manner of presiding secretaries throughout history
since the invention of the public address system, then turned
hopelessly to the technicians. A man came forward, made a simple
adjustment, then retreated. The Secretary cleared his throat, sipped
at a glass of water and spoke.
"The fourth session of the Nineteenth Conference of the Central
Worlds is open for business. The afternoon session will be devoted
to the presentation and discussion of proposals by the membership.
The Recording Secretary will call the roll of delegations."
A short stubby man with five o'clock shadow came forward and
leaned into the bank of microphones, and yelled: "Accryllia!"
Across the chamber a man stood up, holding his delegation's
microphone. "The grand and sovereign system of Accryllia, long
known throughout the galaxy for the excellence of its citrus fruit, the
beauty of its maidens, the virtue of its honorable young men ... the
grand and sovereign state of Accryllia passes."
"Antares!"
"Antares passes."
"Bodancer!"
"The system of Bodancer passes."
"Buddington!"
"Mr. Secretary, the proud system of Buddington yields to Ehrla!"
"Ehrla!"

Citizen Lund stood up, unclipped the mike from the railing, smiled
around at a few more wellwishers and launched into his speech. "Mr.
Secretary! Ehrla wishes to thank the proud and ancient system of
Buddington for relinquishing its rightful order in these proceedings,
so that Ehrla may present a plan that the citizens of Ehrla feel
certain will meet with the full approval of this meeting.
"For hundreds of years, the various peoples represented here today
have been rightly concerned with the problems of new star systems
being developed, new races being assimilated into the federation of
free and lawful worlds. These new worlds need guidance, a guidance
that only long experience can provide."
Evrett looked at Sterm, uneasily. "What is this?" he whispered. "He
isn't presenting the plan like this, I hope? He'll alienate half the
delegations."
"I don't know what he's doing," said Sterm. "I only hope he knows."
"In the past," continued Lund, "the various and varied members of
this honored organization have provided the same guidance in wise
and infinitely proper manner. It is the hope of Ehrla that they will
continue to do so in the future. Therefore the ancient and honorable
system of Ehrla proposes, to this effect, that the members of this
organization continue as they have in the past."
Pandemonium was breaking out in scattered sections of the chamber
as various delegations realized that they were being snookered by
the Ehrlans. Voices rose up here and there, trying to drown out
Lund's words. Monitors moved up and down the aisles, trying to
quell the disturbances.
"Therefore," said Lund, "Ehrla, to the implementation of its plan,
announces to this organization that this day they have annexed the
systems of Phelimina, Trepidar and Scolatia."
He sat down and turned to the rest of his delegation. "Gentlemen,"
he said, smiling, as he handed a sealed envelope to Sterm, "my
resignation."

Reilly slumped in his chair with a sigh. The lecture had gone well,
but it had ended not a moment too soon to suit him.
"I'm growing old," he said, unaware he was speaking out loud.
"Pardon, sir?" The regular service Sergeant-Major closed the door
and brought over his cup of coffee. "Did you say something, sir?"
"What?" Reilly blinked. "Oh, nothing. Nothing at all, Sergeant. Just
an old man muttering to himself."
"Begging the general's pardon, sir, I don't think you're an old man at
all. At least, no older than myself." He cocked his head. "Although,
to be perfectly honest with both of us, sir, there are times when I
just can't seem to keep up with these children they keep sending us
nowadays."