He wrote out an order and passed it for execution.
From twenty giant buildings in the city, a black tide of running figures began to pour. When they reached the street, they went on running. They wanted to get as far as possible from the buildings Bors had said would be destroyed.
"Forty-five seconds gone," said Bors implacably.
A voice spoke from the grid-control building, where men were now placing explosives with precisely calculated effects. The voice came on microwaves to the ship.
"_Sir_," said the voice, "_landing-grid reporting. Space-yacht_ Sylva _reports breakout from overdrive and asks coordinates for landing. Purpose of visit, pleasure-travel._"
Bors swore, then smiled to himself. Gwenlyn had threatened to do something drastic!
"Say landing's forbidden," he commanded an instant later. "Advise immediate departure."
"One minute gone! In two minutes more we send our bombs and take off."
Streets outside the government buildings were filled from building-wall to building-wall by clerks drafted to staff the incredible, arbitrary government set up on its tributary worlds by Mekin. Bors scribbled a list of buildings to be ranged on. The map from the spaceport office would help. He marked the Ministry of Police, which would contain the records essential to the operation of the planet-wide police system. Anything that happened to those records would be so much good fortune for Tralee, and so much bad for the master race and its quislings. He marked the Ministry of the Interior, which would house the machinery for requisitions of tribute to Mekin. The Ministry of Public Order would be the headquarters of the secret and the political police. It ran the forced-labor camps. It filed all anonymous accusations. It kept records on all persons suspected of the crime of patriotism. If anything happened to those records, it would be all to the good.
The voice from the spaceport control building said briskly:
"_Demolition charges placed, sir. Ready to evacuate and fire. Sir, the space-yacht_ Sylva _sends a message to the captain of the pirate ship. It says they'll wait._"
Bors said, "Damn! All right." Then into the broadcast-microphone, "Two-and-a-half minutes. There will be no further count-down. In thirty seconds we fire missiles into government buildings, in retaliation for an attempt to assassinate us with time-bombs. The next sound you hear will be our missiles arriving." He cut back to the grid-control building. "Fire all charges and report to the ship."