"We will launch them immediately if there is another attack made upon Force Command Duplicate HQ, or upon Interplanetary Building in Storisende, or if Rodney Maxwell is killed, no matter by whom or under what circumstances. "We beg you, earnestly and prayerfully, not to force us to do this dreadful thing. We speak to each one of you, for each one of you holds the fate of the planet in his own hands." The image faded from the screen. As it did, Conn was looking from one to another of the people in the room with him. All were dumbfounded, most of them frightened. "They wouldn't do it, would they?" Lorenzo Menardes was asking. "Conn, you know those people. They wouldn't really?" "Don't depend on it, Lorenzo," Klem Zareff said. "It's hard for a lot of people to shoot somebody ten feet away with a pistol. But just sending off a missile; that's nothing but setting a lot of dials and then pushing a button." "I'm not worrying about whether they'd do it or not," Conn said. "What I'm worrying about is how many people will believe they will." Apparently a good many people did. Zareff's combat vehicles began reporting a cessation of fighting. The newscasts, repeating the ultimatum from Koshchei, told of fewer and fewer disorders in the city or elsewhere; by midafternoon, the rioting had stopped. By that time, too, Rodney Maxwell was on-screen. He was, Conn noticed, wearing his pistols again. "What happened?" he asked. "They let you out on bail?" Maxwell shook his head. "Charges dismissed; they didn't have anything to charge me with in the first place. But they haven't let me out yet." "You're wearing your guns." "Yes, but they still have me penned up here at the Executive Palace; they're practically keeping me in the safe. I wish our people on Koshchei hadn't mentioned me in their ultimatum; Jake Vyckhoven's afraid to let me run around loose for fear some lunatic shoots me and starts the planetbusters coming in. Jake did one good thing, though. He ordered the Stock Exchange closed, and declared a five-day bank holiday. By that time, you ought to have Merlin opened and working, and then the market'll be safe." Conn simply replied, "I hope so." There was no telling what kind of taps there might be on the screen his father was using; he couldn't risk telling him about Shanlee, or about the last computation which Merlin had made. "If we send the _Lester Dawes_ in, do you think you might talk them into letting you come out here?" "I can try." Flora arrived at Force Command that afternoon. "I would have come sooner," she said, "but Mother's had a complete collapse. It happened last evening; she's in the hospital. I was with her until just an hour and a half ago. She's still unconscious." "You mean she's in danger?" "I don't know. They think she's all right, except for the shock. It was the Travis statement that did it." "Think I ought to go to her?"