Piper, H Beam - Uller Uprising

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Introduction to ULLER UPRISING

by John F. Carr

With the publication of this novel, Uller Uprising, all of H. Beam Piper's previously published

science fiction is now available in Ace editions. Viler Uprising was first published in 1952 in a

Twayne Science Fiction Triplet-a hardbound collection of three themat-ically connected novels.

(The other two were Judith Meml's Daughters of Earth and Fletcher Pratt's The Long View.) A year

later it appeared in the February and March issues of Space Science Fiction, edited by Lester Del

Rey.

The magazine version, which was abridged by about a third, was believed by many bibliographers to

be the only version-and as a novella it was too short for book publication. The Twayne version had

a small print run and is so scarce that few people have seen it. Those bibliographers who knew of

its existence assumed that both versions of Uller were the same. It was through a telephone

conversation with Charles N. Brown, publisher of Locus and correspondent with Piper, that I

learned about the Twayne edition and its greater length. Brown allowed me to photocopy his

original, for which we owe him a debt of thanks; because the Twayne version is not only novel

length, but far better than the shorter one that appeared in Space Science Fiction.

Probably the most surprising and interesting thing about the Twayne edition is the essay that

forms the introduction to that volume, and is reprinted here. The essay is by Dr. John D. Clark,

an eminent scientist of the fourties and fifties and one of the discoverers of sulfa, the first

"miracle drug." It describes in great detail the planetary system of the star Beta Hydri, and

gives the names of those planets: Uller and Niflheim. A publisher's note states that Clark's essay

was written first, and given to the contributors as background material for a novel they would

then write.

The fans of H. Beam Piper seem to owe a great debt to Dr. Clark. Uller Uprising became the

foundation of Piper's monumental Terro-Human Future History; the first story where we encounter

the Terran Federation. In it we learn about Odin, the planet that will one day be the capital of

the First Galactic Empire; and humble Niflheim, which in more decadent times will become a common

expletive, a word meaning hell. This is also where Piper introduced and explained the Atomic Era

dating system (A.E.). Uller Uprising is set in the early years of the Terran Federation's

expansion and exploration, an epoch of great vitality. In "The Edge of the Knife" Piper compares

this time of discovery to the Spanish conquest of the Americas. This feeling of vigor and

unlimited possibilities runs through all the early Federation stories: Uller Uprising,

"Omnilingual," "Naudsonce," "When in the Course-," and, to a lesser degree, in the late Federation

novels, Little Fuzzy, Fuzzy Sapiens, and Fuz-zies and Other People. (See Federation by H. Beam

Piper for a good overview of this period.)

In these stories we see Terro-Humans at their best and at their worst: Individual heroism and

bravery in the face of grave danger in Uller Uprising; Federation law and justice in Little Fuzzy

and its sequels; and, in "Omnilingual" and "Naudsonce," the spirit of science and rational

inquiry. Yet we also see colonial exploitation and subjugation in Uller Uprising and "Oomphel in

the Sky," the greed and corruption of Chartered land companies in Little Fuzzy, and political

corruption in Four-Day Planet. These stories are about a living Terro-Human culture, not a Utopia.

It was Piper's attention to historical realism and his use of actual historical models that have

helped his work to pass the test of time and have led to his becoming the favorite of a new

generation of readers more than twenty-five years after his death.

Uller Uprising is the story of a confrontation between a human overlord and alien servants, with

an ironic twist at the end. Like most of Piper's best work, Uller Uprising is modeled after an

actual event in human history; in this case the Sepoy Mutiny (a Bengal uprising in British-held

India brought about when rumors were spread to native soldiers that cartridges being issued by the

British were coated with animal fat. The rebellion quickly spread throughout India and led to the

massacre of the British Colony at Cawn-pore.). Piper's novel is not a mere retelling of the Indian

Mutiny, but rather an analysis of an historical event applied to a similar situation in the far

future.

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Like many philosophers and social theorists before him, Piper attempted to chart the progress of

humankind; unlike most, however, he did not envision or try to create a system of ethics that

would end all of humanity's problems. The best he could offer was his model of the self-reliant

man: The man who "actually knows what has to be done and how to do it, and he's going to go right

ahead and do it, without holding a dozen conferences and round-table discussions and giving

everybody a fair and equal chance to foul things up for him."

Piper brought his own ideas and judgments about society and history into all of his work, but they

appear most clearly in his Terro-Human Future History. While not everyone will agree with Piper's

theories they give his work a bite that most popular fiction lacks. One cannot read Piper

complacently. And one can often find a wry insight sandwiched in between the blood and thunder.

Other future histories may span more centuries or better illuminate the highlights of several

decades, but until a rival is created with more historical depth and attention to detail, H. Beam

Piper's Terro-Human Future History will stand as the Bayeux Tapestry of science fiction histories.

In many ways-certainly during his lifetime-Piper was the most underrated of the John W. Campbell's

"Astounding" writers. He was probably also the most Campbellian; his self-reliant man is almost a

mirror image of Campbell's "Citizen."

Piper died a bitter man, a failure in his own mind; shortly before his death he believed he could

no longer earn a living as a writer without charity from his friends or the state.

Now he's the cornerstone of Ace Books. Had he lived long enough to finish another half dozen

books, he would have been among the sf greats of the sixties___

But maybe he does know, after all. Jerry Pournelle, who was very much influenced by Piper and in

many ways considers himself Beam's spiritual descendant-and incidently was John W. Campbell's last

major discovery-has said that sometimes, when he's gotten down a particularly good line, he can

hear the "old man" chuckle and whisper, atta boy.

Introduction

Dr. John D. Clark

I THE SILICONE WORLD

1. THE STAR AND ITS MOST IMPORTANT PLANET

The planet is named Uller (it seems that when interstellar travel was developed, the names of

Greek Gods had been used up, so those of Norse gods were used). It is the second planet of the

star Beta Hydri, right angle 0:23, declension -77:32, G-0 (solar) type star, of approximately the

same size as Sol; distance from Earth, 21 light years.

Uller revolves around it in a nearly circular orbit, at a distance of 100,000,000 miles, making it

a little colder than Earth. A year is of the approximate length of that on Earth. A day lasts 26

hours.

The axis of Uller is in the same plane as the orbit, so that at a certain time of the year the

nonh pole is pointed directly at the sun, while at the opposite end of the orbit it points

directly away. The result is highly exaggerated seasons. At the poles the temperature runs from

120°C to a low of -80°C. At the equator it remains not far from 10°C all year round. Strong winds

blow during the summer and winter, from the hot to the cold pole; few winds during the spring and

fall.

The appearance of the poles varies during the year from baked deserts to glaciers covered with

solid CO2. Free water exists in the equatorial regions all year round.

2. SOLAR MOVEMENT AS SEEN FROM ULLER

As seen from the north pole-no sun is visible on Jan. 1. On April 1, it bisects the horizon all

day, swinging completely around. April 1 to July 1, it continues swinging around, gradually rising

in the sky, the spiral converging to its center at the zenith, which it reaches July 1. From July

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1 to October 1 the spiral starts again, spreading out from the center until on October 1 it

bisects the horizon again. On October 1 night arrives to stay until April 1.

At the equator, the sun is visible bisecting the southern horizon for all 26 hours of the day on

January 1. From January 1 to April 1, the sun starts to dip below the horizon at night, to rise

higher above it during the day. During all this time it rises and sets at the same hours, but

rises in the southeast and sets in the southwest. At noon it is higher each day in the southern

sky until April 1, when it rises due east, passes through the zenith and sets due west. From April

1 to July 1, its noon position drops down to the north, until on July 1, it is visible all day,

bisected by the northern horizon.

3. CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY OF ULLER

Calcium and chlorine are rarer than on earth, sodium is somewhat commoner. As a result of the

shortage of calcium there is a higher ration of silicates to carbonates than exists on earth. The

water is slightly alkaline and resembles a very dilute solution of sodium silicate (water glass).

It would have a pH of 8.5 and tastes slightly soapy. Also, when it dries out it leaves a sticky,

and then a glassy, crackly film. Rocks look fairly earthlike, but the absence or scarcity of

anything like limestone is noticeable. Practically all the sedimentary rocks are of the sandstone

type.

All rivers are seasonal, running from the polar regions to the central seas in the spring only, or

until the polar cap is completely dried out.

4. ANIMAL LIFE

As on Earth life arose in the primitive waters and with a carbon base, but because of the

abundance of silicone, there was a strong tendency for the microscopic organisms to develop

silicate exoskeletons, like diatoms. The present invertebrate animal life of the planet is of this

type and is confined to the equatorial seas. They run from amoeba-like objects to things like

crayfish, with silicate skeletons. Later, some species of them started taking silicone into their

soft tissues, and eventually their carbon-chain compounds were converted to silicone type chains,

from

- C - C - C- to O - Si-O - Si-O - Si

with organic radicals on the side links. These organisms were a transitional type, with silicone

tissues and water body fluids, resembling the earthly amphibians, and are now practically extinct.

There are a few species, something like segmented worms, still to be seen in the backwaters of the

central seas.

A further development occurred when the silicone chain animals began to get short-chain silicones

into their circulatory systems, held in solution by OH or NH2 groups on the ends and branches of

the chains. The proportion of these compounds gradually increased until the water was a minor and

then a missing constituent. The larger mobile species were, then, practically anhydrous. Their

blood consists of short-chain silicones, with quartz reinforcing for the soft parts and their

armor, teeth, etc., of pure amorphous quartz (opal). Most of these parts are of the milky variety,

variously tinted with metallic impurities, as are the varieties of sapphires.

These pure silicone animals, due to their practical indestructibility, annihilated all but the

smaller of the carbon animals, and drove the compromise types into odd corners as relics. They

developed into a fish-like animal with a very large swim-bladder to compensate for the rather

higher density of the silicone tissues, and from these fish the land animals developed. Due to

their high density and resulting high weight, they tend to be low on the ground, rather reptilian

in look. Three pairs of legs are usual in order to distribute the heavy load. There is no sharp

dividing line between the quartz armor and the silicone tissue. One merges into the other.

The dominant pure silicone animals only could become mobile and venture far from the temperate

equatorial regions of Uller, since they neither froze nor stiffened with cold, nor became

incapacitated by heat. Note that all animal life is cold-blooded, with a negligible difference

between body and ambient temperatures. Since the animals are silicones, they don't get sluggish

like cold snakes.

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5. PLANT LIFE

The plants are of the carbon-metabolism, silicate-shell type, like the primitive animals. They

spread out from the equator as far as they could go before the baking polar summers killed them.

They have normal seasonal growth in the temperate zones and remain dormant and frozen in the

winter. At the poles there is no vegetation, not because of the cold winter, but because of the

hot summer. The winter winds frequently blow over dead trees and roll them as far as the

equatorial seas. Other dead vegetation, because of the highly silicious water, always gets

petrified unless it is eaten first. What with the quartz-speckled hides of the living vegetation

and the solid quartz of the dead, a forest is spectacular.

The silicone animals live on the plants. They chew them up, dehydrate them, and convert their

silicious outer bark and carbonaceous interiors into silicones for themselves. When silicone

tissue is metabolized, the carbon and hydrogen go to CO2 and H2O, which are breathed out, while

the silicone goes into SiO2, which is deposited as more teeth and armor. (Compare the terrestrial

octopus, which makes armor-plating out of calcium urate instead of excreting urea or uric acid.)

The animals can, of course, eat each other too, or make a meal of the small carbonaceous animals

of the equatorial seas.

Further note that the animals cannot digest plants when they are cold. They can eat them and store

them, but the disposal of the solid water and CO2 is too difficult a problem. When they warm up,

the water in the plants melts and can be disposed of, and things are simpler.

II THE FLUORINE PLANET

1. THE STAR AND PLANET

The planet named Niflheim is the fourth planet of Nu Puppis, right angle 6:36, declension -43:09;

B8 type star, blue-white and hot, 148 light years distant from Earth, which will require a speed

in excess of light to reach it.

Niflheim is 462,000,000 miles from its primary, a little less than the distance of Jupiter from

our sun. It thus does not receive too great a total amount of energy, but what it does receive is

of high potential, a large fraction of it being in the ultra-violet and higher frequencies. (Watch

out for really super-special sun-bum, etc., on unwarned personnel.)

The gravity of Niflheim is approximately 1 g, the atmospheric pressure approximately 1 atmosphere,

and the average ambient temperature about -60°C; -76°F.

2. ATMOSPHERE

The oxidizer in the atmosphere is free fluorine (F2) in a rather low concentration, about 4 or 5

percent. With it appears a mad collection of gases. There are a few inert diluents, such as N,

(nitrogen), argon, helium, neon, etc., but the major fraction consists of CF4 (carbon

tetrafluoride), BF3 (boron trifluoride), SiF4 (silicon tetrafluoride), PF5 (phosphorous penta-

fluoride), SF6 (sulphur hexafluoride) and probably others. In other words, the fluorides of all

the non-metals that can form fluorides. The phosphorous pen-tafluoride rains out when the weather

gets cold. There is also free oxygen, but no chlorine. That would be liquid except in very hot

weather. It sometimes appears combined with fluorine in chlorine trifluoride. The atmosphere has a

slight yellowish tinge.

3. SOIL AND GEOLOGY

Above the metallic core of the planet, the litho-sphere consists exclusively of fluorides of the

metals. There are no oxides, sulfides. silicates or chlorides. There are small deposits of such

things as bromine trifluoride, but these have no great importance. Since fluorides are weak

mechanically, the terrain is flattish. Nothing tough like granite to build mountains out of. Since

the fluoride ion is colorless, the color of the soil depends upon the predominant metal in the

region. As most of the light metals also have colorless ions, the colored rocks are rather rare.

4. THE WATERS UNDER THE EARTH

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They consist of liquid hydrofluoric acid (HF). It melts at -83°C and boils at 19.4°C. In it are

dissolved varying quantities of metallic and non-metallic fluorides, such as boron trifluoride,

sodium fluoride, etc. When the oceans and lakes freeze, they do so from the bottom up, so there is

no layer of ice over free liquid.

5. PLANTS AND PLANT METABOLISM

The plants function by photosynthesis, taking HF as water from the soil, and carbon tetrafluoride

as the equivalent of carbon dioxide from the air to produce chain compounds, such as:

H H H H

C - C - C - C

F F F F

and at the same time liberating free fluorine. This reaction could only take place on a planet

receiving lots of ultra-violet because so much energy is needed to break up carbon tetrafluoride

and hydrofluoric acid. The plant catalyst (doubling for the magnesium in chlorophyll) is nickel.

The plants are colored in various ways. They get their metals from the soil.

6. ANIMALS AND ANIMAL METABOLISM

Animals depend upon two main reactions for their energy, and for the construction of their harder

tissues. The soft tissues are about the same as the plant molecules, but the hard tissues are

produced by the reaction:

H H H F F F

C- C- C- + F2 -- C- C- C- + HF

F F F F F F

resulting in a teflon boned and shelled organism. He's going to be tough to do much with. Diatoms

leave strata of powdered teflon. The main energy reaction is:

H H H

-C- C- C- ..+ F2-- CF4 + HF

F F F

The blood catalyst metal is titanium, which results in colorless arterial blood and violet

veinous, as the titanium flips back and forth between tri- and tetra-valent states.

7. EFFECT ON INTRUDING ITEMS

Water decomposes into oxygen and hydrofluoric acid. All organic matter (earth type) converts into

oxygen, carbon tetrafluoride, hydrofluoric acid, etc., with more or less speed. A rubber gas mask

lasts about an hour. Glass first frosts and then disappears. Plastics act like rubber, only a

little slower. The heavy metals, iron, nickel, copper, monel, etc., stand up well, forming an

insoluble coat of fluorides at first and then doing nothing else.

8. WHY GO THERE?

Large natural crystals of fluorides, such as calcium difluoride, titanium tetrafluoride, zirconium

tetrafluoride, are extremely useful in optical instruments of various forms. Uranium appears as

uranium hex-afluoride, all ready for the diffusion process. Compounds of such non-metals as boron

are obtainable

H. BEAM PIPER

from the atmosphere in high purity with very little trouble. All metallurgy must be electrical.

There are considerable deposits of beryllium, and they occur in high concentration in its ores.

PROLOGUE

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On Satan's Footstool

The big armor-tender vibrated, gently and not unpleasantly, as the contragravity field alternated

on and off, occasionally varying its normal rate of five hundred to the second when some thermal

updraft lifted the vehicle and the automatic radar-altimeter control acted to alter the frequency

and lower it again. Sometimes it rocked slightly, like a boat on the water, and, in the big screen

which served in lieu of a window at the front of the control cabin, the dingy-yellow landscape

would seem to tilt a little. If unshielded human eyes could have endured the rays of Nu Pupis, Ni-

flheim's primary, the whole scene would have appeared a vivid Saint Patrick's Day green, the

effect of the blue-predominant light on the yellow atmosphere. The outside 'visor-pickup, however,

was fitted with filters which blocked out the gamma-rays and X-rays and most of the ultraviolet-

rays, and added the longer light-waves of red and orange which were absent, so that things looked

much as they would have under the light of a GO-type star like Sol. The air was faintly yellow,

the sky was yellow with a greenish cast, and the clouds were green-gray.

A thousand feet below, the local equivalent of a forest grew, the trees, topped with huge ragged

leaves, looking like hundred-foot stalks of celery. There would be animal life down there, too-

little round things, four inches across, like eight-legged crabs, gnawing at the vegetation, and

bigger things, two feet long, with articulated shell-armor and sixteen legs, which fed on the

smaller herbivores. Beyond, in the mid-dleground, was open grassland, if one could so call a mat

of wormlike colorless or pastel-tinted sprouts, and a river meandered through it. On the skyline,

fifty iles away, was a range of low dunes and hills, none 'more than a thousand feet high.

No human had ever set foot on the surface, or breathed the air, of Niflheim. To have done so would

have been instant death; the air was a mixture of free fluorine and fluoride gasses, the soil was

metallic fluorides, damp with acid rains, and the river was pure hydrofluoric acid. Even the

ordinary spacesuit would have been no protection; the glass and rubber and plastic would have

disintegrated in a matter of minutes. People came to Niflheim, and worked the mines and uranium

refineries and chemical plants, but they did so inside power-driven and contragravity-lifted

armor, and they lived on artificial satellites two thousand miles off-planet. This vehicle, for

instance, was built and protected as no spaceship ever had to be, completely insulated and entered

only through a triple airlock-an outer lock, which would be evacuated outward after it was closed,

a middle lock kept evacuated at all times, and an inner lock, evacuated into the interior of the

vehicle before the middle lock could be opened. Niflheim was worse than airless, much worse.

The chief engineer sat at his controls, making the minor lateral adjustments in the vehicle's

position which were not possible to the automatic controls. One of the radiomen was receiving from

the orbital base; the other was saying, over and over, in an exasperatedly patient voice: "Dr.

Murillo. Dr. Murillo. Please come in, Dr. Murillo." At his own panel of instruments, a small man

with grizzled black hair around a bald crown, and a grizzled beard, chewed nervously at the stump

of a dead cigar and listened intently to what was-or for what wasn't-coming in to his headset

receiver. A couple of assistants checked dials and refreshed their memories from notebooks and

peered anxiously into the big screen. A large, plump-faced, young man in soiled khaki shirt and

shorts, with extremely hairy legs, was doodling on his notepad and eating candy out of a bag. And

a black-haired girl in a suit of coveralls three sizes too big for her, and, apparently, not much

of anything else, lounged with one knee hooked over her chair-arm, staring into the screen at the

distant horizon.

"Dr. Murillo. Dr. Mur-" The radioman broke off in mid-syllable and listened for a moment. "I hear

you, doctor, go ahead." Then, a moment later "What's your position, now, doctor?"

"I can see them," the girl said, lifting a hand in front of her. "At two o'clock, about one of my

hand's-breadths above the horizon."

The man with the grizzled beard put his face into the fur around the eyepiece of the telescopic-

'visor and twisted a dial. "You have good eyes, Miss Quin-ton," he complimented. "Only four

personal armors; Ahmed, ask him where the fifth is."

"We only see four of your personal-armors," the radioman said. "Who's missing, and why?" He waited

for a moment, then lowered the hand-phone and turned. "The fifth one's inside the handling-

machine. One of the Ullerans. Gorkrink."

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The larger of the specks that had appeared on the horizon resolved itself into a handling-machine,

a thing like an oversized contragravity-tank, with a bulldozer-blade, a stubby derrick-boom

instead of a gun, and jointed, claw-tipped arms to the sides. The smaller dots grew into personal

armor-egg-shaped things that sprouted arms and grab-hooks and pushers in all directions. The man

with the grizzled beard began talking rapidly into his hand-phone, then hung it up. There was a

series of bumps, and the armor-tender, weightless on contragravity, shook as the handling-machine

came aboard.

"You ever see any nuclear bombing, Miss Quin-ton?" the young man with the hairy legs asked,

offering her his candy bag.

"Only by telecast, back Sol-side," she replied, helping herself. 'Test-shots at the Federation

Navy proving-ground on Mars. I never even heard of nuclear bombs being used for mining till I came

here, though."

"Well, if this turns out as well as the other job, three months ago, it'll be something to see,"

he promised. "These volcanoes have been dormant for, oh, maybe as long as a thousand years; there

ought to be a pretty good head of gas down there. And the mag-ma'll be thick, viscous stuff, like

basalt on Terra. Of course, this won't be anything like basalt in composition-it'll be intensely

compressed metallic fluorides, with a very high metal-content. The volcanoes we shot three months

ago yielded a fine flow of lava with all sorts of metals-nickel, beryllium, vanadium, chromium,

iridium, as well as copper and iron."

"What sort of gas were you speaking about?" she asked.

"Hydrogen. That's what's going to make the fireworks; it combines explosively with fluorine. The

hydrogen-fluorine combination is what passes for combustion here; the result is hydrofluoric acid,

the local equivalent of water. See, the metallic core of this planet is covered, much less thickly

than that of Terra, with fluoride rock-fluorspar, and that sort of thing. There's nothing like

granite here, for instance. That's why those big dunes, out there, are the best Niflheim has in

the way of mountains. The subsurface hydrogen is produced when the acid filters down through the

rock, combines with pure metals underneath."

"Dr. Murillo's inside, now," the radioman said. "Just came out of the inner airlock. He'll be up

as soon as he gets out of his pressure-suit."

"As soon as he gets here, I'll touch it off," the bearded man said. "Everything set, de Jong?"

"Everything ready, Dr. Gomes," one of his assistants assured him.

The door at the rear of the control-cabin opened, and Juan Murillo, the seismologist, entered,

followed by an assistant. Murillo was a big man, copper-skinned, barrel-chested; he looked like a

third- or fourth-generation Martian, of Andes Indian ancestry. He came forward and stood behind

Gomes' chair, looking down at the instruments. His assistant stopped at the door. This assistant

was not human. He was a biped, vaguely humanoid, but he had four arms and a face like a lizard's,

and, except for some equipment on a belt, he was entirely naked.

He spoke rapidly to Murillo, in a squeaking jabber. Murillo turned.

"Yes, if you wish, Gorkrink," he said, in the English-Spanish-Afrikaans-Portuguese mixture that

was Sixth Centyry, A.E., Lingua Terra. Then he turned back to Gomes as the Ulleran sat down in a

chair by the door.

"Well, she's all yours, Lourenco, shoot the works."

Gomes stabbed the radio-detonator button in front of him. A voice came out of the PA-speaker

overhead: "In sixty seconds, the bombs will be detonated... thirty seconds... fifteen seconds...

ten seconds... five seconds, four seconds, three seconds, two seconds, one second..."

Out on the rolling skyline, fifty miles away, a lancelike ray of blue-white light shot up into the

gathering dusk-a clump of five rays, really, from five deep shafts in an irregular pentagon half a

mile across, blended into one by the distance. An instant later, there was a blinding flash, like

sheet-lightning, and a huge ball of varicolored fire belched upward, leaving a series of smoke-

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rings to float more slowly after it. That fireball flattened, then spread to form the mushroom-

head of a column of incandescent gas that mounted to overtake it, engorging the smoke-rings as it

rose, twisting, writhing, changing shape, turning to dark smoke in one moment and belching flame

and crackling with lightning the next. The armor-tender began to pitch and roll; it was all the

engineer and one of the assistants could do, together, to keep it level.

"In about half an hour," the large young man told the girl, "the real fireworks should be

starting. What's coming up now is just small debris from the nuclear blast. When the Shockwaves

get down far enough to crack things open, the gas'll come up, and then steam and ash, and then the

magma. This one ought to be twice as good as the one we shot three months ago; it ought to be

every bit as good as Krakatoa, on Terra, in 59 Pre-Atomic."

"Well, even this much was worth staying over for," the girl said, watching the screen.

"You going on to Uller on the City of Canberra?" Lourenco Gomes asked. "I wish I were; I have to

stay over and make another shot, in a month or so, and I've had about all of Niflheim I can take,

now. The sooner I get onto a planet where they don't ration the air, the better I'll like it."

"Well, what do you know!" the large young man with the hairy legs mock-marveled. "He doesn't like

our nice planet!"

"Nice planet!" Gomes muttered something. "They call Terra God's Footstool; well, I'll give you one

guess who uses this thing to prop his cloven hoofs on."

"When are you going to Terra?" the girl asked him.

'Terra? I don't know, a year, two years. But I'm going to Uller on the next ship-the City of

Pretoria-if we get the next blast off in time. They want me to design some improvements on a

couple of power-reactors, so I'll probably see you when I get there."

"Here she comes!" the chief engineer called. "Watch the base of the column!"

The pillar of fiery smoke and dust, still boiling up from where the bombs had gone off far

underground, was being violently agitated at the bottom. A series of new flashes broke out,

lifting and spreading the incandescent radioactive gasses, and then a great gush of flame rose. A

column of pure hydrogen must have rushed up into the vacuum created by the explosion; the next

blast of flame, in a lateral sheet, came at nearly ten thousand feet above the ground, and great

rags of fire, changing from red to violet and back through the spectrum to red again, went soaring

away to dissipate in the upper atmosphere. Then geysers of hot ash and molten rock spouted upward;

some of the white-hot debris landed almost at the acid river, halfway to the armor-tender.

"We've started a first-class earthquake, too," the Hispano-Indian Martian Murillo said, looking at

the instruments. "About six big cracks opening in the rock-structure. You know, when this quiets

down and cools off, we'll have more ore on the surface than we can handle in ten years, and more

than we could have mined by ordinary means in fifty."

About four miles from the original blast, another eruption began with a terrific gas-explosion.

"Well, that finishes our work," the large young man said, going to a kitbag in the comer of the

cabin and getting out a bottle. "Get some of those plastic cups, over there, somebody; this one

calls for a drink."

"That's right," Gomes said. "You do something once, it may be an accident; you repeat the

performance, and it's a success." He began pushing papers aside on his desk, and the girl in the

too-ample coveralls brought drinking cups.

The Ulleran, in the background, rose quickly and squeaked apologetically. Murillo nodded. "Yes, of

course, Gorkrink. No need for you to stay here." The Ulleran went out, closing the door behind

him.

"That taboo against Ullerans and Terrans watching each other eat and drink," Murillo said. "What

is that, part of their religion?"

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"No, it's their version of modesty," the girl replied. "Like some of our sex-inhibitions, which

they can't even begin to understand... But you were speaking to him in Lingua Terra; I didn't know

any of them understood it."

"Gorkrink does," Murillo said, uncorking the bottle and pouring into the plastic cups. "None of

them can speak it, of course, because of the structure of their vocal organs, any more than we can

speak their languages without artificial aids. But I can talk to him in Lingua Terra without

having to put one of those damn gags in my mouth, and he can pass my instructions on to the

others. He's been a big help; I'll be sorry to lose him."

"Lose him?"

"Yes, his year's up; he's going back to Uller on the Canberra. You know, it's impossible to keep

some trace of fluorine from the air in the handling-machines, or even out on the orbiters, and it

plays the devil with their lungs. He wanted to stay on another three months, to help with the next

shot, but the medics wouldn't hear of it-----He's from Keegark, wherever on Uller that is; claims

to be a prince, or something. I know all the other geeks kowtow to him. But he's a damn good

worker. Very smart; picks things up the first time you tell him. I'll recommend him unqualifiedly

for any kind of work with contragravity or mechanized equipment."

They all had drinks, now, except the chief engineer, who wanted a rain-check on his.

"Well, here's to us," Murillo said. "The first A-bomb miners in history..."

Chapter I- Commander-in-Chief Front and Center

General Carlos von Schlichten threw his cigarette away, flexed his hands in his gloves, and set

his monocle more firmly in his eye, stepping forward as the footsteps on the stairway behind him

ceased and the other officers emerged from the squat flint keep-Captain Cazabielle, the post CO;

big, chocolate-brown Brigadier-General Themistocles M'zangwe; little Colonel Hideyoshi O'Leary.

Far in front of him, to the left, the horizon was lost in the cloudbank over Takkad Sea; directly

in front, and to the right, the brown and gray and black flint mountains sawed into the sky until

they vanished in the distance. Unseen below, the old caravan-trail climbed one side of the pass

and slid down the other, a sheer five hundred feet below the parapet and the two corner catapult-

platforms which now mounted 90-mm guns. On the little hundred-foot-square parade ground in front

of the keep, his aircar was parked, and the soldiers were assembled.

Ten or twelve of them were Terrans-a couple of lieutenants, sergeants, gunners, technicians, the

sergeant-driver and corporal-gunner of his own car. The other fifty-odd were Ulleran natives. They

stood erect on stumpy legs and broad, six-toed feet. They had four arms apiece, one pair from true

shoulders and the other connected to a pseudo-pelvis midway down the torso. Their skins were slate-

gray and rubbery, speckled with pinhead-sized bits of quartz that had been formed from

perspiration, for their body-tissues were silicone instead of carbon-hydrogen. Their narrow heads

were unpleasantly saurian; they had small, double-lidded red eyes, and slit-like nostrils, and

wide mouths filled with opalescent teeth. Except for their belts and equipment, they were

completely naked; the uniform consisted of the emblem of the Chartered Uller Company stencil-

painted on chests and backs. Clothing, to them, was unnecessary, either for warmth or modesty. As

to the former, they were cold-blooded and could stand a temperature-range of from a hundred and

twenty to minus one hundred Centigrade. Von Schlichten had seen them sleeping in the open with

their bodies covered with frost or freezing rain; he had also seen them wade through boiling

water. As to the second, they had practically no sex-inhibitions; they were all of the same

gender, true, functional, hermaphrodites. Any individual among them could bear young, or fertilize

the ova of any other individual. Fifteen years ago, when he had come to Uller as a former Terran

Federation captain newly commissioned colonel in the army of the Uller Company, it had taken some

time before he had become accustomed to the detailing of a non-com and a couple of privates out of

each platoon for baby-sitting duty. At least, though, they didn't have the squaw-trouble around

army posts on Uller that they had on Thor, where he had last been stationed.

An airjeep, coming in out of the sun, circled the crag-top fort and let down onto the terrace next

to von Schlichten's command-car. It carried a bristle of 15-rnm machine-guns, and two of the eight

50-mm rocket-tubes on either side were empty and freshly smoke-stained. The duraglass canopy slid

back, and the two-man crew-lieutenant-driver and sergeant-gunner- jumped out. Von Schlichten knew

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them both.

"Lieutenant Kendall; Sergeant Garcia," he greeted. "Good afternoon, gentlemen."

Both saluted, 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 Jaiz-erd'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 river-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,

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