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The people of Vintnor were aroused. They milled angrily around Earth Headquarters carrying banners that said, “Go home, Earth murderers!” The headman of Barshwat called upon Colonel Blynn. The colonel courteously refused to withdraw his men from the planet. “I’m under orders, old chap,” he said, “but I’ll report your request back to Earth.”

“It isn’t a request,” the headman said.

Colonel Blynn smiled and said, “We’ll treat it as one, shall we?”

Clarey knew what happened, because the headman gave a report of the conversation to the Barshwat Prime Bulletin. He also got a letter from his aunt describing the incident as vividly as if she had been there herself. The Barshwat Prime ran a series of increasingly intemperate editorials calling upon all the nations of Damorlan to unite against the Earthmen; it was spirit that counted, it said, rather than technology. Malesor wrote a letter asking how superior spiritual values could compete against presumably superior weapons. He read it aloud in the Purple Furbush before he sent it to the editor of the Barshwat Prime, which was lucky, because the Prime never printed it, although the Dordonec Bulletin ran a copy.