Now for the console. He tipped it up on edge to get at the hollow bottom. He unlocked a cabinet and got the booby trap and put it under the front edge of the bottom. He would not set it yet. He would give it ten minutes from when he operated the console at firing time. The length of the firing would be three minutes– he had decided to take it easy on himself– and the recoil time would be about forty seconds later. So six minutes and twenty seconds after he fired– bang! No console!

He took it out and put it down on the oversized metal platform made for it, a platform about ten feet by seven feet, just inside the atmosphere armor zone. All nicely figured out. The big bus bars which operated the atmosphere armor cable had long since been installed on a raised board.

He hadn't expected snow but he had put a weather shield on the cable board. He hadn't put a shelter for the console itself so now he had to throw a piece of tarpaulin over it to keep snow off the buttons.

Terl adjusted the console's position and then got the forklift out of there. He simply dumped it. What did it matter? Those animals had left machinery all over the place– big magnetic cranes, blade scraper, diggers. What a mess!

He got busy connecting the power cables from the poles to the console. It was quite a massive lot of cables. He didn't want to trip on his way from the console, when he punched in the coordinates to the platform, so he bundled them all together. It made a snake about six inches in diameter.

Terl double-checked the color codes. Yes, he had them all correct.

He checked the armor cable by turning it on. A lot of new snow flew into the air in a circle. Yes, it worked. He turned it off.

He checked the juice input to the console. All live.

Terl looked at his watch.

It was a full hour to firing time. Time to go in for a mouthful of kerbango.

He surveyed the office. Last time he would ever see this place. Thank the devils!

Terl opened his cabinets and began to dump anything and everything into the recycling bin. He opened the false backs and bottoms and consigned anything in them to oblivion. The habits of a security chief were too strong. He dumped all his reams of notes and formulas into the maw of the recycler. Then he noticed it wasn't running. Ah, of course, he must have blown the compound fuses when he put that armor cable on. Who cared? This planet was going up in smoke anyway.

He went to his closet and got his dress uniform and boots out and quickly changed. He put on his parade cap. He looked at himself in the mirror. Pretty good!

Terl threw a few things in a travel bag.

He looked at his watch. Twenty minutes to go. The snow, he could see through the compound roof, was coming down even heavier. Who cared?

He put on a breathe-mask with a fresh pair of cartridges, picked up the beautifully wrapped– and very difficult to unwrap– ultimate bomb, picked up his travel kit, and left his office for the last time.

All was ready outside!

Five hundred Brigantes, bows protected from the weather, looking a bit huddled and cold even in their buffalo coats, had been marched up and now stood in the formation he had carefully pointed out. A total ring with its back to the atmosphere cable, a nearly solid wall of Brigantes.

Captunk Arf Moiphy seemed to be the officer in charge of them all. Terl addressed him sternly: “Now you and your men all understand that you are only to use bows and poisoned arrows and knives or bayonets. There must be no firing of powder or blast weapons.”

"We's gart orl dat!" called General

Snith.

Ah, good! General Snith and an honor guard of six Brigantes, all of them in air masks, were on the platform, armed with bows which they were protecting from the snow.

Terl looked around. It was a bit hard to see through these snowflakes and gusts of wind. He had heard a chattering from somewhere.

What was that? By the crap nebula, the whole Brigante tribe was gathered down by the morgue to see General Snith off! Amazing! The women were all bundled up against the snow and off-duty mercenaries were in among them. What a filthy mob! Good thing he was wearing a mask for he knew they smelled awful.

And there was Brown Limper Staffor and Lars Thorenson. They had come up on the plateau with a ground car and were standing there. The very people he wanted to see.

Terl walked over to them.

Instead of saying “Goodbye” or even “Nice to have known you,” Brown Limper Staffor said, “I don't see Tyler."

Terl stopped before him. Brown Limper was all bundled up in some kind of expensive fur. Snow was falling upon his hair and collar. His eyes looked feverishly overbright.

“Oh, he'll be here,” said Terl. “He'll be here.”

Terl looked down at Brown Limper's feet. There was a case there, a fat case about three feet long. Aha! Terl stooped and before Brown Limper or Lars could stop him picked up the case and, with a cuff of his paw, broke the locks.

A Thompson submachine gun! So he was right to distrust this animal. One shot from this thing during a firing could blow up the platform!

Terl took the weapon by the barrel and with his paws bent it in a half-circle. He threw it aside. “That was not nice,” said Terl. “You could have blown up the whole place!”

Brown Limper didn't seem upset. His eyes still looked furtive.

Terl took Lars' belt gun, took the cartridge canister out of it, and threw it fifty feet away. “No firing!” said Terl, waggling a cautionary claw in front of their faces. Did Brown Limper have something else? Terl wondered. He looked quite unhinged but not about the guns.

“Here,” said Terl, in a cajoling tone of voice, “here is a nice present to make it up to you.”

He handed Brown Limper the thoroughly wrapped ultimate bomb. It weighed about eighty pounds, and as Brown Limper took it, he almost dropped it. Terl, in some apprehension, caught it before it could fall. Terl managed a smile as he restored it to Brown Limper.

“It’s a nice gift,” said Terl. “Open it when I’m gone and you'll find the answer to your most golden dreams. Something to remember me by.” No danger in giving it to them: it would take them an hour to get the wrapper off. Then one lift of the lid and bang-no planet!

Terl patted Brown Limper on the head. He glanced at his watch. Still plenty of time. He walked over toward the platform. Captunk Arf Moiphy called his men to attention. Terl marched on by.

With a bold and martial step, Terl walked to the console.

He reached down and closed the bus bar on the atmosphere armor cable. Snow flew up all along its length. Good!

He was now safe! A solid wall enclosed the console and platform and beyond that a solid wall of armed bodies.

He glanced at his watch. He had plenty of time. He walked over to the baggage and kicked his own kit into the pile. The Brigantes had brought quite a mound of air bottles for themselves.

General Snith, militarily dressed in a buffalo coat, his “diamond” in his cap, his crossbelts jammed with poisoned arrows, gave him a chest-pound salute. But he asked, “You gonna change de money fer tsure?" He pointed to a huge mound of money, Brown Limper notes.

“Absolutely,” Terl reassured him. “Credits go where credit is due! Besides, you have me hostage, don't you?”

Snith was reassured.

And speaking of hostages, Terl leaned over the long bundle and opened the top of it. Black, glaring eyes pierced him. He beckoned to the Brigante so assigned and the man pushed an air mask on the face and shoved the bottle onto the chest. He buckled the bottle on. He had almost gotten bit!

Terl looked at his watch. The time was coming up. He walked over to the console.

He moved the toggle switch in the upper left-hand corner to the up position. He threw on the activating bus bar. The console's top buttons glowed.