Seaton could not get in touch with Ree-Toe Prenk, of course, until the Valeron was actually inside Galaxy DW427-LU; but as soon as communication could be established Kay-Lee Barlo asked eagerly, “You did get our thought, then, Ky-El? Mother’s and mine? We didn’t feel that we were quite reaching you.”

“Not exactly,” Seaton replied. “I didn’t get any real thought at all; just a feeling that I ought to be going somewhere that bothered me no end until I headed this way. But since it was you people calling, I’m mighty glad I got what little I did.”

The Skylark went into orbit around Ray-See-Nee and the Skylarkers climbed into a landing-craft that Seaton had designed and built specifically for the occasion. It was a miniature battleship — one of the deadliest fighting ships of its size and heft ever built.

And this time the whole party was heavily armed. Dunark and Sitar were in full Osnomian panoply of war. Dorothy wore a pair of her long-barrelled .38 target pistols in leg-holsters under her bouffant skirt. Even little Lotus wore two .25 automatics. “I don’t know whether I can hit anybody with one of these or not,” she had said while Dorothy was rigging her. “I’d much rather work hand to hand. But if they’re too far away to get at I can at least make a lot of noise and look like I’m doing something.”

They were met at the spaceport by two platoons of the Premier’s Guard, led by Captain-General Sy-By Takeel himself. They were guarded like visiting royalty from the spaceport to the Capitol Building and up into the Room of State, where they were greeted with informal cordiality by Prenk and by Kay-Lee, who was now an Exalted of the Thirty-Fifth, besides being First Deputy Premier.

Prenk seated his guests, not on stools in front of and below his throne-like desk, but at a long conference table with Seaton as its head. The two lieutenants posted guards outside the two immense doors at the far end of the vast room and stationed the rest of their men in position to cover both entrances. Takeel, with velvet slippers over his field-boots, stood on Prenk’s desk, commanding the entire room, with a machine-gun-like weapon cradled expertly and accustomedly in the crook of his left arm.

“Are things this bad?” Seaton asked. “I knew it was tough when you told us to come loaded for bear — but this?”

“They’re exactly this bad. These two—” Prenk jerked a thumb at Kay-Lee and at Takeel — “are the only two people on this whole world that I know I can trust. Until quite recently I was sure I held the city — but now I’m not at all sure of holding even this building. I can only hope that you’re not too late. I’ll tell you what the situation is; then you will tell me, please, if there is anything you can do about it.”

He talked for twelve minutes. Then:

“P-s-s-s-st!” Kay-Lee hissed. “Danger! Coming — nearing us — fast! I can feel it — taste it — smell it! Get ready quick!” She sprang to her feet, drew her pistol, and arranged a dozen clips of cartridges meticulously on the table in front of her.

The Osnomians’ chairs crashed backward, their heavy coats flew off, and they stood tensely ready, machine pistols in all four hands. And, seconds later, the other Skylarkers were on their feet and ready too. The Captain-General had not heard the low-voiced warning, but he had seen the action and that was enough. Trigger-nerved Dunark’s chair had no sooner struck the floor on its first bounce than Takeel was going into his shooting stance, with his weapon flipping around into firing position as though it were sliding in a greased groove; the while glaring ferociously at his senior lieutenant — who thereupon began to have an acute attack of the jitters.

It was the commander’s savage motion, actually, that ruined the attackers’ split-second schedule. For, at a certain second, the two lieutenants were to shoot their captain; then to shoot Prenk and Kay-Lee Barlo; and then, as the attack proper was launched, they were to kill as many of their own men as they could. Thus, knowing what a savage performer the Captain-General was with his atrocious weapon, their hands were forced; they had to act a couple of seconds too soon. They tried — but with two short bursts so close together as to be practically one, Takeel cut them down. Cut them both almost literally in two.

Thus, when the two great doors were blasted simultaneously down and the attackers stormed in with guns ablaze, they did not find a half-dead and completely demoralized Guard and a group of surprised visitors. Instead:

The mercenaries were neither dead nor demoralized. They knew exactly what to do and were doing it. Dunark and Sitar had the fire-power of half a company of trained troops and were using it to the fullest full. The Captain general, from his coign of vantage atop the desk, was spraying both entrances with bullets like a gardener watering two flower-beds with a hose. Kay-Lee was throwing lead almost as fast as Takeel was; changing magazines with such fluent speed and precision as to miss scarcely a shot. Dorothy, nostrils flaring and violet eyes blazing, was shooting as steadily and as accurately as though she were out on the range marking up another possible. Even tiny Lotus, with one of her .25’s clutched in both hands, was shooting as fast as she could pull the trigger.

It was Seaton, however, who ended the battle. He waited long enough to be absolutely sure of what was going on, then fired twice with his left-hand magnum — through the doorways, high over the heads of the attackers, far down the corridors.

There were two terrific explosions; followed by one long rumbling crash as that whole section of the building either went somewhere else or collapsed into rubble. Falling and flying masonry and steel and razor-edged shards of structural glass killed almost everyone outside the heavily reenforced wall of the Room of State. The shock-waves of the blasts, raging through the doorways, killed half of the enemy massed there and blew the others half the length of the room. And, continuing on with rapidly decreasing force, knocked most of the Skylarkers flat and blew the Captain general off of the desk and clear back against the wall.

“Sangram’s head!” that worthy yelled, scrambling to his feet with machine-gun again — or still? He had not for an instant lost control of that! — at the ready. “What in Japnonk’s rankest hell was that?”

“X-plosive shell,” Seaton said, his voice as hard as his eyes. “This time I came loaded for bear. Now we’ll mop up and find out what’s been going on. I gather, sir, that your two platoon leaders were in on it?”

“Yes. It’s a shame I had to kill ’em without asking ’em a few questions.” He did not explain that he had had neither the time in which nor the weapon with which merely to wound them seriously enough so that neither of them could fight back with any sort of weapon. There was no need.

“That won’t make too much difference.” Seaton looked around; first at his own crew and then at the guards, half of whom were down. Medics and first-aid men were rushing in to work on them. He looked again, more closely, at his people and at Prenk and Kay-Lee. Not one of them, apparently, had even been scratched.

That, however, was logical. The mercenaries were hardtrained fighting men, shooting was their business. Hence the attackers’ orders had been to shoot the guards first, and there had been no time to evaluate the actual situation and to change the plan of attack. Hence, as far as anyone knew, not a single bullet had been aimed at the far end of the room.

Seaton took a pair of headsets out of his pocket and applied one of them, first to one of the two lieutenants’ heads, then to the other.

“Uh-huh,” he grunted then. “That ape didn’t know too much, but this one was going to be the new captain-general. I suppose you’ve got a recorder, Ree-Toe?”