The three Terrans looked at them gravely. A double-dozen heads was standard payment for an attack in which no Terran had been killed. Ostensibly, they were the heads of the ringleaders; in practice, they were usually lopped from the first two-dozen prisoners or overage slaves at hand, without regard for whether the victims had ever heard of the crime they were expiating. There was another long speech from Gurgurk, with the nobles behind him murmuring antiphonal agreement--standard procedure, for which there was a standard pun, geek chorus--and a speech of response from Sid Harrington. Standing stiffly through the whole rigamarole, von Schlichten waited for it to end, as, finally, it did. They walked back from the door, whence they had escorted the delegation, and stood looking down at the saurian heads on the rug. Harrington raised his voice and called to a Kragan sergeant whose chevrons were painted on all four arms. "Take this carrion out and stuff it in the incinerator," he ordered. * * * * * "Wait a minute," von Schlichten told the sergeant. Then he disgorged and pouched his geek-speaker. "See that head, there?" he asked, rolling it over with his toe. "I killed that geek, myself, with my pistol. And Hid O'Leary stuck a knife in that one." He walked around the rug, turning heads over with his foot. "This was a cut-rate head-payment; they just slashed off two-dozen heads at the scene of the riot. Six months ago, Gurgurk wouldn't have tried to pull anything like this. Now he's laughing up his non-existent sleeve at us." "That's what I've been preaching, all along," Eric Blount took up after him. "These geeks need having the fear of Terra thrown into them." "Oh, nonsense, Eric; you're just as bad as Carlos, here!" Harrington tut-tuted. "Next, you'll be saying that we ought to depose Jaikark and take control ourselves." "Well, what's wrong with that, for an idea?" von Schlichten demanded. "My God!" Harrington exploded. "Don't let me hear that kind of talk again! We're not _conquistadores_: we're employees of a business concern, here to make money honestly, by exchanging goods and services with these people...." * * * * * He turned and walked away, out of the Audience Hall, leaving von Schlichten and Blount to watch the removal of the geek-heads. "You know, I went a little too far," von Schlichten confessed. "Or too fast, rather." "We can't go too slowly, though," Blount replied. Von Schlichten nodded seriously. "Did you notice the green specks in the hide of that Prince Gorkrink?" he asked. "He's just come back from Niflheim. Probably on the _Canberra_, three months ago." "And he's here to get that plutonium, and ship it to Keegark on the _Oom Paul Kruger_," Blount considered. "I wonder just what he learned, on Niflheim."