Dunneldeen was on the job in the ops room and told Jonnie that he'd talked Stormalong into getting his beard trimmed like “Sir Francis Drake.” No, nothing new from Edinburgh except that the North Chinese now working there were doing fine. Did Jonnie know they were much bigger men? Oh, yes, and Ker and two bank guards were holding blast rifles on fifty new prisoners at Victoria.

Jonnie glanced up at the sky. If worse came to worst, he had his own way to handle this: a way which might make a fatal future but which might have to be done.

He went to his room to get into less spectacular clothes. They had a few short days. But days had a habit of passing awfully fast when you needed them.

The final confrontation, the last battle, was all too near.

Chapter 7

The fateful moment of the bank meeting arrived.

Five days had passed.

Jonnie sat alone in the small meeting room that had been prepared and waited for the others to arrive.

There was not the slightest doubt in his mind that this was going to be a battle bigger than he had ever fought before.

Being Jonnie, he had been unwilling to simply sit idly by while MacAdam and Baron von Roth prepared.

They had been busy enough. For five days and nights, the hum of the teleportation rig had resounded through the bowl. Things had come and things had gone on the platform behind the tarpaulins.

But they did no talking less they be overheard and the only words that sounded were, “Motors off!" “No planes approaching!” “Stand by!” and “Fire!” Whenever anyone, especially emissaries or the small gray men, had come near the tarpaulins or the curtained corridor to a bunker, stern bank guards had pushed them back peremptorily. All Jonnie got from MacAdam was, “Later. Later!” Not even Angus was talking.

He had gotten an estimate that it would be several days. Mr. Tsung had told Jonnie that the negotiations of finance and banking were very specialized things. He had added one phrase that had stuck in Jonnie's mind: “The power of money and gold over the souls of men passes all wondering.”

The predawn sky of the day after MacAdam's arrival had found Jonnie in the air. He had heard of a university outside the ruins of an old city named

Salisbury about one hundred seventy-five miles southeast of Kariba. He had tried to get Sir Robert to come along but the old Scot was hanging on to the radio in the ops room, doing what he could for Edinburgh. Instead, Jonnie had taken a couple of Chinese soldiers to shoo off the lions and elephants when they threatened to interrupt his studies.

The university was a ruin but the library could be sorted out amid the dust and debris, the roof and walls having stood. Camped out in the wreckage, Jonnie had pried congealed packs of catalogue cards apart and had pretty well found what he was looking for. It had been a well-endowed library once. It included lots of economics texts, probably because the relatively new nation had had a dreadful economic struggle of it. The texts were in English and they covered the history of economics and banking pretty well.

Mr. Tsung had been absolutely right! It was a highly specialized subject. And when one went wrong, like some nut named Keynes they had all become mad at, it really messed things up. What Jonnie got out of it was that the state was for people. He had suspected that was the way it should be. And individuals worked and made things and exchanged them for other things. And it was easier to do it with money. But money itself could be manipulated. The Chinkos had been great and patient teachers and Jonnie knew how to study. And with a mind like his, he got things as quickly as a traveling shot.

Four of those five days had been spent ears deep in books, nose full of dust, with Chinese guards warning off black mamba snakes and African buffalo.

Sitting there in the meeting room, waiting for the others, he had the satisfaction of knowing that, while he was no expert, he would at least have a grip on what this battle was all about.

Sir Robert came in, grumbling and cross, and took a seat over to the side with Jonnie. Even though the small gray men had indicated it was between Sir Robert and them, the War Chief of Scotland knew that claymores and lochaber axes weren't going to win this one and as far as he was concerned it was all up to the experts. Basically he was very concerned about Edinburgh. They had gotten food and water through into the various shelters with thin hoses but rock was still crumbling in on their tunnel efforts. They had been driving in huge, heavy pipe casings for days now and the only hope was that they were not crumbling this time.

Dries Gloton and Lord Voraz came in. A table for four had been set in the middle of the room and they took two of the places on one side of it. They were very neatly dressed in gray suits. They had their arms full of papers and attache cases and they put them down. They looked exactly like hungry sharks.

Neither Jonnie nor Sir Robert had acknowledged their arrival.

“You don't seem very pleased this morning,” said Lord Voraz.

“We be men of the sword,” said Sir Robert. “We ha' sma' truck wi' the money changers I' the temple.”

Sir Robert's sudden use of English caused both small gray men to turn on their vocoders.

“I noticed,” said Dries Gloton, “when I came in that there were half a hundred soldiers in white tunics and red pants all around in the rifle pits in the bowl.”

“An honor guard,” said Sir Robert.

“They had an assortment of weapons,” said Dries. “And one huge fellow certainly looked more like a brigand than an officer in charge of an honor guard.”

“I wouldn't let Colonel Ivan hear you say that,” said Sir Robert.

“Do you realize,” said Dries Gloton, “that if you killed the emissaries and us, you would become an outlaw nation? They know where we are. You would have a dozen fleets in here smashing you to bits.”

“Better to fight fleets than be a' cut up with bits o' paper,” said Sir Robert, gesturing at their piles of it. “There's na thrat i' the Roosians if you tell the truth and behave. We ken this be a battle o' wits and skullduggery. But it's a battle a' the same and a bloody one!”

Lord Voraz turned to Jonnie. “Why do you regard us in so hostile a fashion, Sir Lord Jonnie? I assure you we have only the friendliest feelings for you personally. We admire you greatly. You must believe that.” He seemed and probably was sincere.

“But banking is banking,” said Jonnie. “And business is business. Is that it?”

“Of course!” said Lord Voraz. “However, personal regard sometimes enters in. And in your case it most certainly does. I tried several times in the last few days to find you. It is unfortunate that we could not have had our talk before this meeting here. We are actually your personal friends.”

"In what way?” asked Jonnie coolly.

A grizzly bear or an elephant would have backed off when Jonnie sounded like that. But not Lord Voraz. “Do you realize that when a planet is sold, all its people and all its technology are sold with it? Didn't you read the brochure? You and your immediate associates are exempted in the sale and so is anything you may have developed.”

“How generous,” said Jonnie with cold sarcasm.

“Since we had no chance to talk and the others seem to be late,” said Lord

Voraz, “I can tell you now. We have worked out an offer. We will create a technical department in the Galactic Bank and make you the head of it. We will build a fine factory in Snautch-that's the capital of the system, you know– provide you with everything you need, and give you a lifetime contract. If the figure I already offered seems too low, we can negotiate it. You would not lack for money.”

“And money is everything,” said Jonnie bitingly.