By 2100, the last organized resistance had been wiped out, a curfew had been imposed, and peace of a sort restored. There was still the threat from Keegark, but it was looking less ominous now than it had the evening before. Von Schlichten and Paula were having dinner in the Broadway Room, confident that there was nothing left to do that they could do anything about, when the extension phone that had been plugged in at their table rang.
"Colonel Quinton here," Paula identified herself into it, and listened for a moment. "There has? When?... Well, where did it come from?... I see. And the direction?... Anything else?"
Apparently there was nothing else. She hung up, and turned to von Schlichten.
"The _Sky-Spy_ just detected a ship lifting out from Keegark, presumed one of the Boer-class freighters, either the _Jan Smuts_ or the _Oom Paul Kruger_. It was first picked up on contragravity at about a hundred feet, rising vertically from near the Palace. The supposition is the geeks had her camouflaged since the time Commander Prinsloo first bombarded Keegark with the _Aldebaran_. That was about twenty minutes ago; at last report, she's fifty miles north of Keegark, headed up the Hoork River."
Von Schlichten started thinking aloud: "That could be a feint, to draw our ships north after her, and leave the approach to Konkrook or Kankad's open, but that would be presuming that they know about the _Sky-Spy_, and I doubt that, though not enough to take chances on. They know we have ground and ship-radar, and they may think they can slip down the Konk Valley either undetected or mistaken for one of our ships from North Ullr."
He picked up the phone. "Get me through on telecast to Air-Commodore Hargreaves, aboard the _Procyon_," he said. "I'll take it in the office; I'll be up directly." He rose. "Finish your dinner, and have the rest of mine sent up," he told Paula.
Leaving the elevator, he rushed into the big headquarters room just as contact was established with the _Procyon_, on station over the north-western corner of Takkad Sea, between Kankad's Town and Keegark. The Aldebaran, he knew, was west of Keegark; the _Northern Lights_, now fitted with a pair of 155-mm guns, in addition to her 90's, had just arrived at Kankad's. He had the _Aldebaran_ sent north along the crest of the mountain-range between the Hoork and Konk river-valleys, where she could cover both with her own radar and other detection-devices and exchange information with the _Sky-Spy_, and the _Gaucho_ sent in what looked like the right course to intercept the Boer-class freighter from Keegark. The _Northern Lights_, also with screens tuned to the _Sky-Spy_, was sent to take over the Aldebaran's regular station. Finally, he called Skilk and had the _Northern Star_ sent south down the Hoork Valley.