Uller Uprising | Page 9

in the informal, hell-with-rank-we're-all-human manner
of Terran soldiers on extraterrestrial duty, and returned the greeting.
"How's the Jeel situation?" he asked, then nodded toward the fired
rocket-tubes. "I see you had some shooting."
"Yes, sir," the lieutenant said. "Two bands of them. We sighted the first
coming up the eastern side of the mountain about two miles this side of
the Blue Springs. We got about half of them with MG-fire, and the rest
dived into a big rock-crevice. We had to use two rockets on them, and
then had to let down and pot a few of them with our pistols. We caught
the second band in that little punchbowl place about a mile this side of
Zortolk's Old Fort. There were only six of them; they were bunched
together, feeding. Off one of their own gang, I'd say; the way we've
been keeping them up in the high rocks, they've been eating inside the
family quite a bit, lately. We let them have two rockets. No survivors.
Not many very big pieces, in fact. We let down at Zortolk's for a beer,
after that, and Captain Martinelli told us that one of his jeeps caught
what he thinks was the same band that was down off the mountain
night-before-last and ate those peasants on Prince Neeldink's estate."
"By God, I'm glad to hear that!" There'd been a perfect hell of a flap
about that business. Before the Terrans came to Uller, it was a good

year when not more than five hundred farm-folk would be killed and
eaten by Jeel cannibals. The incident of two nights ago had been the
first of its kind in almost six months, but the nobleman whose serfs had
been eaten was practically accusing the Company of responsibility for
the crime. "I'll see that Neeldink is informed. The more you do for
these damned geeks, the more they expect from you.... When you get
your vehicle re-ammoed, lieutenant, suppose you buzz back to where
you machine-gunned that first gang. If there are any more around,
they'll have moved in for the free meal by now." This breakdown of the
Jeels' taboo against eating fellow-tribesmen was one of the best things
he'd heard from the cannibal-extermination project for some time.
He turned to Themistocles M'zangwe. "In about two weeks, get a little
task-force together. Say ten combat-cars, about twenty airjeeps, and a
battalion of Kragan Rifles in troop-carriers. Oh, yes, and this
good-for-nothing Konkrook Fencibles outfit of Prince Jaizerd's; they
can be used for beaters, and to block escape routes." He turned back to
Lieutenant Kendall and Sergeant Garcia. "Good work, boys. And if the
synchro-photos show that any of that first bunch got away, don't feel
too badly about it. These Jeels can hide on the top of a pool-table."
He climbed into the command-car, followed by Themistocles
M'zangwe and Hideyoshi O'Leary. Sergeant Harry Quong and Corporal
Hassan Bogdanoff took their places on the front seat; the car lifted,
turned to nose into the wind, and rose in a slow spiral. Below, the fort
grew smaller, a flat-topped rectangle of masonry overlooking the pass,
a gun covering each approach, and two more on the square keep to
cover the rocky hogback on which the fort had been built, with the
flagpole between them. Once that pole had lifted a banner of ragged
black marsh-flopper skin bearing the device of the Kragan
riever-chieftain whose family had built the castle; now it carried a neat
rectangle of blue bunting emblazoned with the wreathed globe of the
Terran Federation and, below that, the blue-gray pennant which bore
the vermilion trademark of the Chartered Uller Company.
"Where now, sir?" Harry Quong asked.
He looked at his watch. Seventeen-hundred; there wasn't time for a visit

to Zortolk's Old Fort, ten miles to the north at the next pass.
"Back to Konkrook, to the island."
The nose of the car swung east by south; the cold-jet rotors began
humming and then the hot-jets were cut in. The car turned from the fort
and the mountains and shot away over the foothills toward the coastal
plain. Below were forests, yellow-green with new foliage of the second
growing season of the equatorial year, veined with narrow dirt roads
and spotted with occasional clearings. Farther east, the dirty gray
woodsmoke of Uller marked the progress of the charcoal-burnings. It
took forty years to burn the forests clear back to the flint cliffs; by the
time the burners reached the mountains, the new trees at the seaward
edge would be ready to cut. Off to the south, he could see the dark
green squares, where the hemlocks and Norway spruce had been
planted by the Company. With a little chemical fertilizer, they were
doing well, and they made better charcoal than the silicate-heavy native
wood.