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.
Jules Keaveney, to von Schlichten's agreeable surprise, had taken hold of
his ARP assignment, and was doing an efficient job in organizing for
fire-fighting, damage-control and first aid. Colonel Jarman had his
airjeeps and combat-cars working in ever-widening circles over the
countryside, shooting up everything in sight that even looked like
contragravity equipment. Some of these patrols had to be recalled, around
1030, when sporadic nuisance-sniping began from the side of the mountain
to the west. And, along with everything else, Paula Quinton managed to get
a complete digest prepared of the situation elsewhere in the
Terran-occupied parts of the planet.
The situation at Konkrook was brightening steadily. The second wave of
Kankad's improvised airlift, reenforced by contragravity from
Konkrook, had come in; there were now close to two thousand fresh
Kragans on Gongonk Island and the mainland farms, Kankad himself with
them. The _Aldebaran_ had reached Kankad's Town, and was loading
another thousand Kragans.... There was nothing more from Keegark. A
message from Colonel MacKinnon had come in at dawn, to the effect that
the geeks had penetrated his last defenses and that he was about to
blow up the Residency; thereafter Keegark went off the air.... By
0730, the _Northern Star_ had landed the regiment Murderers, armed
with first-quality Terran infantry-rifles and a few machine-guns and
bazookas, at the Palace at Krink, and by 0845 she had returned with
another regiment, the Jeel-Feeders. The three-street lane connecting
the Palace and the Residency had been widened to six, and then to
eight.... Guido Karamessinis, at Grank, was still at uneasy peace with
King Yoorkerk, who was still undecided whether the rebels or the
Company were going to be the eventual victors, and afraid to take any
irrevocable step in either direction.
* * * * *
At 1100, Paula Quinton and Barney Mordkovitz virtually ordered him to
get some sleep. He went to his quarters at Company House, downed a
spaceship-captain's-size drink of honey-rum, and slept until 1600. As
he dressed and shaved, he could hear, through the open window, the
slow sputter of small-arms-fire, punctuated by the occasional
_whump-whump-whump_ of 40-mm. auto-cannon or the hammering of a
machine-gun.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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