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for the soldier had the very effective street club that all the generalissimo's soldiers carried when they helped protect the liberated people of modern Hamidia.
    Hamidia was bounded by three Latin-American countries that would have had the most repressive regimes in South America if it were not for Generalissimo Moombasa's.
    Two things, however, saved Moombasa from protests by the world. From without and within. One, his soldiers with clubs would kill protesters very often and very thoroughly. That took care of protest from within. Second, he had wisely put a hammer and sickle on his flag, called his country the "People's Democratic Republic of Hamidia" and went about talking socialism as piles of people, who were foolish enough to whisper unkind things about him, went up in flames. Moombasa called them "my bonfires." The world outside Hamidia ignored the bonfires and concentrated only on the hammer and sickle. No protests from there either.
    Once, when he got tired of burning people, he tried to take over Uruguay, Paraguay, and Venezuela. He did this by killing bathers, schoolchildren, bus drivers, airplane passengers, people in restaurants, and any other unprotected citizens with his soldiers, who were generally too cowardly to fight other soldiers.
    Attacks on civilians were not considered atrocities because Moombasa called them "battles in the war of liberation." Promptly, three quarters of the newspapers in Great Britain and half its universities opened their minds to his far-reaching philosophies.
    At first he had said, "I don't got no philosophy. I kill people."
    But it was then that he and Neville Lord Wissex became fast and true friends. He called Lord Wissex "my good friend Neville."
    Of course, half the other people he had called his good friends were now charred remnants buried on the outskirts of Liberation City, his capital. The other half killed for him.
    Wissex had said to him: "We'll get you a philosophy and then you can kill anyone you want in any way you want and you will be respected in the world community. Nothing you can do will be condemned except by people you can call names yourself."
    "What kind of philosophy?" Moombasa had asked. He thought it might have something to do with not eating meat.
    "Marxism. Just say you are the people and anyone against you is against the people and therefore you are defending the people as you kill anyone you want. But you must always blame everything that goes wrong on the United States of America. And sometimes Great Britain."
    Moombasa couldn't believe how well it worked. He spent municipal taxes on a new pleasure boat for himself instead of sewage disposal and half a city died from the ensuing diseases. Then he blamed American imperialism for the suffering of his people, and immediately scores of new articles appeared in Europe and America describing how the generalissimo fought hunger, disease, and American imperialism.
    It gave him an international license to kill. Having been granted that, he made his first important purchase from Lord Wissex: a delayed-action bomb and, more importantly, the Wissex employees to deliver it.
    He almost toppled two neighboring governments that way, before they sent armies to his borders, and he suddenly decided they were brothers in the never-ending battle against American aggression and tyranny.
    But now, Lord Wissex was asking an astounding price for knife fighters.
    "Five million dollars?" said Moombasa. "Let me see the knife."
    Lord Wissex nodded the Gurkha knifeman to approach the large chair on which the generalissimo sat. The Gurkha handed the blade hilt forward.
    Moombasa looked at the knife. He felt the blade. It was sharp. He ran a hand across the back of the blade. It was curved.
    "I give you twenty-five dollars," said the generalissimo to Wissex.
    Lord Wissex smiled tolerantly.
    "That's ten dollars too much, my friend Moombasa, President for Life. It is not the knife. It's the delivery. You can buy a lump of lead for a