With amazing speed they had printed currency. The German had come in on it because he had a brother who had preserved the art of making woodcutting blocks that printed on paper. They had found warehouses full of untouched currency paper in an old ruin called London and hand presses in a town once called Zurich. In no time at all, they were issuing currency.

The notes only had one denomination: one Earth credit. Apparently they had made one trial issue and it didn't go. People didn't know what to do with it. They had been bartering with horses and suchlike and they had to be taught what money was. So they had made a second issue.

It was a specimen of this second issue that was lying on Brown Limper's desk and giving him much trouble. Not just trouble but a revulsion so deep it was making him ill. The woodblock bill was very nicely printed. It said Earth Planetary Bank. It had a figure “1” in each corner. It had “One Credit” spelled out in all the languages and calligraphy used by existing tribes. It had “Legal Tender for All Debts, Private and Public” on it, similarly repeated in the various tongues. It had “Exchangeable for One Credit at the Bank Offices of Zurich and London or any Branch of the Earth Planetary Bank.” It had “Secured by the Tribal

Lands of the Tribes of Earth as Attested in Production.” It had “By Charter of the Council of Earth.” And it had the signatures of the two bank directors. All that was fine.

But it had, squarely in the center of it, in a big oval, a portrait of Jonnie

Tyler!

They had copied a picture of him somebody had taken with a picto-recorder. There he was in a buckskin hunting shirt, bareheaded, a silly look on his face somebody thought must be noble or something. And of all things he had a blast gun in his hand.

Worse! There was his name curled over the top of the picture: "Jonnie Goodboy Tyler."

And even worse! On the scroll under the picture it said, “Conqueror of the Psychlos."

Nauseating. Awful.

But how could the bank make such a blunder?

Not fifteen minutes ago he had finished a conversation with MacAdam on the radio. MacAdam had explained that the first issue was not popular at all. So they had instantly gotten out this second issue. It seemed people might not know what money was, but they could comprehend Jonnie

Goodboy Tyler, and in some places they were not using it as money but putting it up on their walls, even framing it. Yes, bundles of it now had gone to every tribe. No, they couldn't be recalled for it would hurt the bank's credit.

Brown Limper had tried to explain that this was totally against the Council's intentions in chartering the bank. There had been a unanimous Council resolution that there must be no more war. The resolution had meant “War between tribes is hereby forbidden,” but Brown Limper had seen that it was worded so as to include all war everywhere including interplanetary.

This bank note, he had explained with all the logic he could bring to bear, was contrary to that antiwar resolution. They had this...this...fellow brandishing a weapon and they were actually inciting war in the future against the

Psychlos and who knew who else.

MacAdam had been sorry and so had the German in Zurich, but they really didn't sound sorry. They had their charter, and if the Council wanted to ruin its own credit, it would be unfortunate if funds were cut off to America in the future, so the charter must stay valid and unchanged and the bank must do what it saw fit to do in order to carry on its business. And it would be too bad when the World

Court now in planning convened, if it had as its first suit a member of the bank against the Council for breach of trust and corollary expenses.

No, Brown Limper thought gloomily. They didn't sound sorry.

He would take no more advice from Council members about this. He would go down and get some while standing in the shadows of the post near the cage. But he didn't have any real hope.

"Jonnie Goodboy Tyler. Conqueror of Psychlos." Brown Limper spat on the bill.

He suddenly seized the bill and tore it frantically into little pieces.

Then he threw the pieces around with angry gestures.

After that he gathered them all up again and, with a set, malevolent expression on his face, burned them.

Then he pulverized the ashes with his fist. But somebody came in soon after and said with a delighted smile, “Have you seen the new bank note?” And waved one!

Brown Limper rushed out of the room and found a place to vomit.

Later, calmer, he determined that even though they were all against him, he would continue to do his very best for Earth. He would really get that Tyler.

The flatbed rumbled and jarred through the soaking wet night. The ground drive of these things was supposed to keep them floating one to three feet off the ground. But when the ground varied eight to ten feet from level every few feet, the effect was far from floating. It was bone jarring.

The teleportation-type drive sought to automatically adjust itself to the sensed ground distance. It corrected and recorrected and the result was a whining, racing, dying, racing combination of rumbles and screeches that hurt the ears.

No wheeled vehicle could have traveled this “road” at all; so gullied and rock strewn a “highway” was fit only for wandering beasts, if that. The ore trucks that had traversed it for hundreds of years had worsened it rather than otherwise as they blew off the humus, the only thing that protected it from the gutting of the rain.

Jonnie was trying to get some sleep. He was dead tired. His left arm ached from constant use of the cane. His palm was calloused now but even it had rubbed raw. Four days of floundering through this forest, four days of constant sweating from the heat, four days of walking with a cane and four nights full of insects had taken their toll. If he wanted to fight a battle with any degree of success, he had better get some sleep.

The seat was, of course, huge. But it was not very cushioned. And when there weren't bumps and jolts, there were stops. Like right now.

He opened his eyes to look through the windscreen. The rumps of elephants! Tails twitching in the headlights, bedewed with rain, they were strolling along, used to these trucks and owning the road for themselves. Psychlo trucks had no car horns but they had bullhorns and the Russian driver was using one now. He was telling those elephants to get off the road. He was repeating some word that sounded like "suk-in-sin" and Jonnie divined it did not mean “elephant.” He went back to sleep, bullhorn and all.

The next time he opened his eyes, a leopard was blocking the way. It had killed a mouse deer and was using the road for a dinner table. Jonnie took it that the leopard did not like its meals interrupted. The fangs and glaring green orbs of the eyes indicated it was ready to take on any number of trucks. The bullhorn was going again. Somewhere they had changed drivers and the Scot was at the controls. The leopard heard the Scot battle cry and leaped straight up and off the road and was gone. They passed over the dead mouse deer, once more on their way.

A flatbed could do eighty on the flat. It was straining now to get eight! No wonder it took days to get from the branch compound to the main minesite! Testimony that Psychlos didn't do it any faster lay in the little round-domed roadside houses that occurred every few miles.

Jonnie had stopped at the first one they came to. It was ideal for ambush, and even though he didn't think the Psychlos would leave anybody behind, one should know what lay ahead. But it was just a dome, big enough for four or five Psychlos to stretch out and rest or wait for a repair truck or have lunch. It was bare; a shelter that kept out wild animals and rain, nothing more.