"Sure, if you like. Talking to them won't matter, no Kristang would surrender to a primitive species like humans, it would be unimaginably humiliating. The only reason they would surrender would be in the hope that Kristang ships will come back some day, but if that happens, any Kristang who had surrendered to humans would be executed, and their families back home would be severely punished."

"All right," Brenner said, "these railgun rounds, what would be involved in their use?"

"The railgun on the Flying Dutchman was not designed for orbital bombardment, so to punch up the power enough to reach the Kristang deep in their hidey holes would require the railgun to charge up to maximum power, that makes about forty minutes between shots. The Lyon and Hangzhou sites are not very deep, two strikes on each site should penetrate deep enough to kill every Kristang in those two bunkers. The Durango site would take three strikes. At Durango, the rounds would act to collapse the mountain on top of the bunker and seal the lizards in permanently. To get all the way down to the bunker would require a half dozen rounds, removing most of the mountain. Which I think you won't want, and it isn't necessary. Also, too many hypervelocity strikes would throw a considerable amount of dust into your atmosphere and temporarily alter your climate, like a volcano erupting. Three rounds should take care of the problem at Durango. Each impactor yields seventy kilotons in a shaped charge, the blast effect would be mostly focused downward, but there would be substantial debris thrown out in a spray pattern. Lyon would be affected more than Hangzhou."

The president pursed her lips. "I need to consider this." She turned to her FEMA director. "In any case, begin evacuating anyone within fifty miles-"

Skippy made a convincing coughing sound. "A hundred would be better. And there will be a lot of dust and debris in the air downwind."

"Within one hundred miles of Durango." The president continued.

"Yes ma'am," the director of FEMA nodded, "people have mostly cleared out of that area anyway, after the lizards moved in." The guy looked completely exhausted, I doubted that he'd gotten any sleep the previous night. Or many nights in months. Even the president had dark circles under her eyes, and she looked a lot older than I remembered before Columbus Day. As bad as conditions had gotten on Paradise, life on Earth had been worse.

Now I was feeling guilty about the seven blissful hours of shut-eye I had dreamed away, while everyone else had been working.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN    TICKING CLOCK

"Is there anything I can do for you, Sergeant Bishop?" Kendall asked me the next afternoon.

"Oh. Uh, nothing. It's an honor to serve, Staff Sergeant."