Oomphel in the Sky | Page 8

General
Maith thought that a few minor concessions would help him on his
main objective, which was keeping a swarming from starting out here."
"Yes. The Commissioner of Native Welfare wanted that done, mainly
at the urging of the Director of Economic, Educational and Technical
Assistance. The EETA crowd don't like shoonoon. They have been
trying, ever since their agency was set up, to undermine and destroy
their influence with the natives. This looked like a good chance to get
rid of some of them."
Travis nodded. "Yes. And as soon as the disturbances in Bluelake
started, the Constabulary started rounding them up there, too, and at the
evacuee cantonments. They got about fifty of them, mostly from the
cantonments east of the city--the natives brought in from the flooded
tidewater area. They just dumped the lot of them onto us. We have
them penned up in a lorry-hangar on the military reservation now." He
turned to Gonzales. "How many do you think you'll gather up out here,
general?" he asked.
"I'd say about a hundred and fifty, when we have them all."
Travis groaned. "We can't keep all of them in that hangar, and we don't

have anywhere else--"
Sometimes a new idea sneaked up on Miles, rubbing against him and
purring like a cat. Sometimes one hit him like a sledgehammer. This
one just seemed to grow inside him.
"Foxx, you know I have the top three floors of the Suzikami Building;
about five hundred hours ago, I leased the fourth and fifth floors,
directly below. I haven't done anything with them, yet; they're just as
they were when Trans-Space Imports moved out. There are ample
water, light, power, air-conditioning and toilet facilities, and they can
be sealed off completely from the rest of the building. If General
Maith's agreeable, I'll take his shoonoon off his hands."
"What in blazes will you do with them?"
"Try a little experiment in psychological warfare. At minimum, we may
get a little better insight into why these natives think the Last Hot Time
is coming. At best, we may be able to stop the whole thing and get
them quieted down again."
"Even the minimum's worth trying for," Travis said. "What do you
have in mind, Miles? I mean, what procedure?"
"Well, I'm not quite sure, yet." That was a lie; he was very sure. He
didn't think it was quite time to be specific, though. "I'll have to size up
my material a little, before I decide on what to do with it. Whatever
happens, it won't hurt the shoonoon, and it won't make any more
trouble than arresting them has made already. I'm sure we can learn
something from them, at least."
Travis nodded. "General Maith is very much impressed with your grasp
of native psychology," he said. "What happened out here this morning
was exactly as you predicted. Whatever my recommendation's worth,
you have it. Can you trust your native driver to take your car back to
Bluelake alone?"
"Yes, of course."

"Then suppose you ride in with me in my car. We'll talk about it on the
way in, and go see General Maith at once."
Bluelake was peaceful as they flew in over it, but it was an uneasy
peace. They began running into military contragravity twenty miles
beyond the open farmlands--they were the chlorophyll green of Terran
vegetation--and the natives at work in the fields were being watched by
more military and police vehicles. The carniculture plants, where
Terran-type animal tissue was grown in nutrient-vats, were even more
heavily guarded, and the native city was being patroled from above and
the streets were empty, even of the hordes of native children who
usually played in them.
The Terran city had no streets. Its dwellers moved about on
contragravity, and tall buildings rose, singly or in clumps, among the
landing-staged residences and the green transplanted trees. There was a
triple wire fence around it, the inner one masked by vines and the
middle one electrified, with warning lights on. Even a government
dedicated to the betterment of the natives and unwilling to order
military action against them was, it appeared, unwilling to take too
many chances.
Major General Denis Maith, the Federation Army commander on
Kwannon, was considerably more than willing to find a temporary
home for his witch doctors, now numbering close to two hundred. He
did insist that they be kept under military guard, and on assigning his
aide, Captain Travis, to co-operate on the project. Beyond that, he gave
Miles a free hand.
Miles and Travis got very little rest in the next ten hours. A
half-company of engineer troops was also kept busy, as were a number
of Kwannon Planetwide News technicians and some Terran and native
mechanics borrowed from different private business concerns