Ministry Of Disturbance

: Ministry ... Of Disturbance

Sometimes getting a job is harder than the job after you get

it--and sometimes getting out of a job is harder than either!





The symphony was ending, the final triumphant pæan soaring up and up,

beyond the limit of audibility. For a moment, after the last notes had

gone away, Paul sat motionless, as though some part of him had followed.

Then he roused himself and finished his coffee and cigarette, lo king

out the wide window across the city below--treetops and towers, roofs

and domes and arching skyways, busy swarms of aircars glinting in the

early sunlight. Not many people cared for João Coelho's music, now, and

least of all for the Eighth Symphony. It was the music of another time,

a thousand years ago, when the Empire was blazing into being out of the

long night and hammering back the Neobarbarians from world after world.

Today people found it perturbing.



He smiled faintly at the vacant chair opposite him, and lit another

cigarette before putting the breakfast dishes on the serving-robot's

tray, and, after a while, realized that the robot was still beside his

chair, waiting for dismissal. He gave it an instruction to summon the

cleaning robots and sent it away. He could as easily have summoned them

himself, or let the guards who would be in checking the room do it for

him, but maybe it made a robot feel trusted and important to relay

orders to other robots.



Then he smiled again, this time in self-derision. A robot couldn't feel

important, or anything else. A robot was nothing but steel and plastic

and magnetized tape and photo-micro-positronic circuits, whereas a

man--His Imperial Majesty Paul XXII, for instance--was nothing but

tissues and cells and colloids and electro-neuronic circuits. There was

a difference; anybody knew that. The trouble was that he had never met

anybody--which included physicists, biologists, psychologists,

psionicists, philosophers and theologians--who could define the

difference in satisfactorily exact terms. He watched the robot pivot on

its treads and glide away, trailing steam from its coffee pot. It might

be silly to treat robots like people, but that wasn't as bad as treating

people like robots, an attitude which was becoming entirely too

prevalent. If only so many people didn't act like robots!



He crossed to the elevator and stood in front of it until a tiny

electroencephalograph inside recognized his distinctive brain-wave

pattern. Across the room, another door was popping open in response to

the robot's distinctive wave pattern. He stepped inside and flipped a

switch--there were still a few things around that had to be manually

operated--and the door closed behind him and the elevator gave him an

instant's weightlessness as it started to drop forty floors.



When it opened, Captain-General Dorflay of the Household Guard was

waiting for him, with a captain and ten privates. General Dorflay was

human. The captain and his ten soldiers weren't. They wore helmets,

emblazoned with the golden sun and superimposed black cogwheel of the

Empire, and red kilts and black ankle boots and weapons belts, and the

captain had a narrow gold-laced cape over his shoulders, but for the

rest, their bodies were covered with a stiff mat of black hair, and

their faces were slightly like terriers'. (For all his humanity,

Captain-General Dorflay's face was more like a bulldog's.) They were

hillmen from the southern hemisphere of Thor, and as a people they made

excellent mercenaries. They were crack shots, brave and crafty fighters,

totally uninterested in politics off their own planet, and, because they

had grown up in a patriarchial-clan society, they were fanatically loyal

to anybody whom they accepted as their chieftain. Paul stepped out and

gave them an inclusive nod.



* * * * *



"Good morning, gentlemen."



"Good morning, Your Imperial Majesty," General Dorflay said, bowing the

couple of inches consistent with military dignity. The Thoran captain

saluted by touching his forehead, his heart, which was on the right

side, and the butt of his pistol. Paul complimented him on the smart

appearance of his detail, and the captain asked how it could be

otherwise, with the example and inspiration of his imperial majesty.

Compliment and response could have been a playback from every morning of

the ten years of his reign. So could Dorflay's question: "Your Majesty

will proceed to his study?"



He wanted to say, "No, to Niffelheim with it; let's get an aircar and

fly a million miles somewhere," and watch the look of shocked

incomprehension on the captain-general's face. He couldn't do that,

though; poor old Harv Dorflay might have a heart attack. He nodded

slowly.



"If you please, general."



Dorflay nodded to the Thoran captain, who nodded to his men. Four of

them took two paces forward; the rest, unslinging weapons, went

scurrying up the corridor, some posting themselves along the way and the

rest continuing to the main hallway. The captain and two of his men

started forward slowly; after they had gone twenty feet, Paul and

General Dorflay fell in behind them, and the other two brought up the

rear.



"Your Majesty," Dorflay said, in a low voice, "let me beg you to be most

cautious. I have just discovered that there exists a treasonous plot

against your life."



Paul nodded. Dorflay was more than due to discover another treasonous

plot; it had been ten days since the last one.



"I believe you mentioned it, general. Something about planting loose

strontium-90 in the upholstery of the Audience Throne, wasn't it?"



And before that, somebody had been trying to smuggle a fission bomb into

the Palace in a wine cask, and before that, it was a booby trap in the

elevator, and before that, somebody was planning to build a submachine

gun into the viewscreen in the study, and--



"Oh, no, Your Majesty; that was--Well, the persons involved in that plot

became alarmed and fled the planet before I could arrest them. This is

something different, Your Majesty. I have learned that unauthorized

alterations have been made on one of the cooking-robots in your private

kitchen, and I am positive that the object is to poison Your Majesty."



They were turning into the main hallway, between the rows of portraits

of past emperors, Paul and Rodrik, Paul and Rodrik, alternating over and

over on both walls. He felt a smile growing on his face, and banished

it.



"The robot for the meat sauces, wasn't it?" he asked.



"Why--! Yes, Your Majesty."



"I'm sorry, general. I should have warned you. Those alterations were

made by roboticists from the Ministry of Security; they were installing

an adaptation of a device used in the criminalistics-labs, to insure

more uniform measurements. They'd done that already for Prince Travann,

the Minister, and he'd recommended it to me."



That was a shame, spoiling poor Harv Dorflay's murder plot. It had been

such a nice little plot, too; he must have had a lot of fun inventing

it. But a line had to be drawn somewhere. Let him turn the Palace upside

down hunting for bombs; harass ladies-in-waiting whose lovers he

suspected of being hired assassins; hound musicians into whose

instruments he imagined firearms had been built; the emperor's private

kitchen would have to be off limits.



Dorflay, who should have been looking crestfallen but relieved, stopped

short--shocking breach of Court etiquette--and was staring in horror.





"Your Majesty! Prince Travann did that openly and with your consent?

But, Your Majesty, I am convinced that it is Prince Travann himself who

is the instigator of every one of these diabolical schemes. In the case

of the elevator, I became suspicious of a man named Samml Ganner, one of

Prince Travann's secret police agents. In the case of the gun in the

viewscreen, it was a technician whose sister is a member of the

household of Countess Yirzy, Prince Travann's mistress. In the case of

the fission bomb----"



The two Thorans and their captain had kept on for some distance before

they had discovered that they were no longer being followed, and were

returning. He put his hand on General Dorflay's shoulder and urged him

forward.



"Have you mentioned this to anybody?"



"Not a word, Your Majesty. This Court is so full of treachery that I can

trust no one, and we must never warn the villain that he is suspected--"



"Good. Say nothing to anybody." They had reached the door of the study,

now. "I think I'll be here until noon. If I leave earlier, I'll flash

you a signal."



* * * * *



He entered the big oval room, lighted from overhead by the great

star-map in the ceiling, and crossed to his desk, with the viewscreens

and reading screens and communications screens around it, and as he sat

down, he cursed angrily, first at Harv Dorflay and then, after a

moment's reflection, at himself. He was the one to blame; he'd known

Dorflay's paranoid condition for years. Have to do something about it.

Any psycho-medic would certify him; be no problem at all to have him put

away. But be blasted if he'd do that. That was no way to repay loyalty,

even insane loyalty. Well, he'd find a way.



He lit a cigarette and leaned back, looking up at the glowing swirl of

billions of billions of tiny lights in the ceiling. At least, there were

supposed to be billions of billions of them; he'd never counted them,

and neither had any of the seventeen Rodriks and sixteen Pauls before

him who had sat under them. His hand moved to a control button on his

chair arm, and a red patch, roughly the shape of a pork chop, appeared

on the western side.



That was the Empire. Every one of the thousand three hundred and

sixty-five inhabited worlds, a trillion and a half intelligent beings,

fourteen races--fifteen if you counted the Zarathustran Fuzzies, who

were almost able to qualify under the talk-and-build-a-fire rule. And

that had been the Empire when Rodrik VI had seen the map completed, and

when Paul II had built the Palace, and when Stevan IV, the grandfather

of Paul I, had proclaimed Odin the Imperial planet and Asgard the

capital city. There had been some excuse for staying inside that patch

of stars then; a newly won Empire must be consolidated within before it

can safely be expanded. But that had been over eight centuries ago.



He looked at the Daily Schedule, beautifully embossed and neatly slipped

under his desk glass. Luncheon on the South Upper Terrace, with the

Prime Minister and the Bench of Imperial Counselors. Yes, it was time

for that again; that happened as inevitably and regularly as Harv

Dorflay's murder plots. And in the afternoon, a Plenary Session, Cabinet

and Counselors. Was he going to have to endure the Bench of Counselors

twice in the same day? Then the vexation was washed out of his face by a

spreading grin. Bench of Counselors; that was the answer! Elevate Harv

Dorflay to the Bench. That was what the Bench was for, a gold-plated

dustbin for the disposal of superannuated dignitaries. He'd do no harm

there, and a touch of outright lunacy might enliven and even improve the

Bench.



And in the evening, a banquet, and a reception and ball, in honor of His

Majesty Ranulf XIV, Planetary King of Durendal, and First Citizen Zhorzh

Yaggo, People's Manager-in-Chief of and for the Planetary Commonwealth

of Aditya. Bargain day; two planetary chiefs of state in one big

combination deal. He wondered what sort of prizes he had drawn this

time, and closed his eyes, trying to remember. Durendal, of course, was

one of the Sword-Worlds, settled by refugees from the losing side of the

System States War in the time of the old Terran Federation, who had

reappeared in Galactic history a few centuries later as the Space

Vikings. They all had monarchial and rather picturesque governments;

Durendal, he seemed to recall, was a sort of quasi-feudalism. About

Aditya he was less sure. Something unpleasant, he thought; the titles of

the government and its head were suggestive.



He lit another cigarette and snapped on the reading screen to see what

they had piled onto him this morning, and then swore when a graph chart,

with jiggling red and blue and green lines, appeared. Chart day, too.

Everything happens at once.



* * * * *



It was the interstellar trade situation chart from Economics. Red line

for production, green line for exports, blue for imports, sectioned

vertically for the ten Viceroyalties and sub-sectioned for the

Prefectures, and with the magnification and focus controls he could even

get data for individual planets. He didn't bother with that, and

wondered why he bothered with the charts at all. The stuff was all at

least twenty days behind date, and not uniformly so, which accounted for

much of the jiggling. It had been transmitted from Planetary

Proconsulate to Prefecture, and from Prefecture to Viceroyalty, and from

there to Odin, all by ship. A ship on hyperdrive could log light-years

an hour, but radio waves still had to travel 186,000 mps. The

supplementary chart for the past five centuries told the real

story--three perfectly level and perfectly parallel lines.



It was the same on all the other charts. Population fluctuating slightly

at the moment, completely static for the past five centuries. A slight

decrease in agriculture, matched by an increase in synthetic food

production. A slight population movement toward the more urban planets

and the more densely populated centers. A trend downward in

employment--nonworking population increasing by about .0001 per cent

annually. Not that they were building better robots; they were just

building them faster than they wore out. They all told the same story--a

stable economy, a static population, a peaceful and undisturbed Empire;

eight centuries, five at least, of historyless tranquility. Well, that

was what everybody wanted, wasn't it?



He flipped through the rest of the charts, and began getting summarized

Ministry reports. Economics had denied a request from the Mining Cartel

to authorize operations on a couple of uninhabited planets; danger of

local market gluts and overstimulation of manufacturing. Permission

granted to Robotics Cartel to---- Request from planetary government of

Durendal for increase of cereal export quotas under consideration--they

wouldn't want to turn that down while King Ranulf was here. Impulsively,

he punched out a combination on the communication screen and got Count

Duklass, Minister of Economics.



Count Duklass had thinning red hair and a plump, agreeable, extrovert's

face. He smiled and waited to be addressed.



"Sorry to bother Your Lordship," Paul greeted him. "What's the story on

this export quota request from Durendal? We have their king here, now.

Think he's come to lobby for it?"



Count Duklass chuckled. "He's not doing anything about it, himself. Have

you met him yet, sir?"



"Not yet. He's to be presented this evening."



"Well, when you see him--I think the masculine pronoun is

permissible--you'll see what I mean, sir. It's this Lord Koreff, the

Marshal. He came here on business, and had to bring the king along, for

fear somebody else would grab him while he was gone. The whole object of

Durendalian politics, as I understand, is to get possession of the

person of the king. Koreff was on my screen for half an hour; I just got

rid of him. Planet's pretty heavily agricultural, they had a couple of

very good crop years in a row, and now they have grain running out their

ears, and they want to export it and cash in."



"Well?"



"Can't let them do it, Your Majesty. They're not suffering any hardship;

they're just not making as much money as they think they ought to. If

they start dumping their surplus into interstellar trade, they'll cause

all kinds of dislocations on other agricultural planets. At least,

that's what our computers all say."



And that, of course, was gospel. He nodded.



"Why don't they turn their surplus into whisky? Age it five or six years

and it'd be on the luxury goods schedule and they could sell it

anywhere."



Count Duklass' eyes widened. "I never thought of that, Your Majesty.

Just a microsec; I want to make a note of that. Pass it down to somebody

who could deal with it. That's a wonderful idea, Your Majesty!"



* * * * *



He finally got the conversation to an end, and went back to the reports.

Security, as usual, had a few items above the dead level of bureaucratic

procedure. The planetary king of Excalibur had been assassinated by his

brother and two nephews, all three of whom were now fighting among

themselves. As nobody had anything to fight with except small arms and a

few light cannon, there would be no intervention. There had been

intervention on Behemoth, however, where a whole continent had tried to

secede from the planetary republic and the Imperial Navy had been

requested to send a task force. That was all right, in both cases. No

interference with anything that passed for a planetary government, but

only one sovereignty on any planet with nuclear weapons, and only one

supreme sovereignty in a galaxy with hyperdrive ships.



And there was rioting on Amaterasu, because of public indignation over a

fraudulent election. He looked at that in incredulous delight. Why, here

on Odin there hadn't been an election in the past six centuries that

hadn't been utterly fraudulent. Nobody voted except the nonworkers,

whose votes were bought and sold wholesale, by gangster bosses to

pressure groups, and no decent person would be caught within a hundred

yards of a polling place on an election day. He called the Minister of

Security.



Prince Travann was a man of his own age--they had been classmates at the

University--but he looked older. His thin face was lined, and his hair

was almost completely white. He was at his desk, with the Sun and

Cogwheel of the Empire on the wall behind him, but on the breast of his

black tunic he wore the badge of his family, a silver planet with three

silver moons. Unlike Count Duklass, he didn't wait to be spoken to.



"Good morning, Your Majesty."



"Good morning, Your Highness; sorry to bother you. I just caught an

interesting item in your report. This business on Amaterasu. What sort

of a planet is it, politically? I don't seem to recall."



"Why, they have a republican government, sir; a very complicated setup.

Really, it's a junk heap. When anything goes badly, they always build

something new into the government, but they never abolish anything. They

have a president, a premier, and an executive cabinet, and a tricameral

legislature, and two complete and distinct judiciaries. The premier is

always the presidential candidate getting the next highest number of

votes. In the present instance, the president, who controls the

planetary militia, is accusing the premier, who controls the police, of

fraud in the election of the middle house of the legislature. Each is

supported by the judiciary he controls. Practically every citizen

belongs either to the militia or the police auxiliaries. I am looking

forward to further reports from Amaterasu," he added dryly.



"I daresay they'll be interesting. Send them to me in full, and red-star

them, if you please, Prince Travann."



He went back to the reports. The Ministry of Science and Technology had

sent up a lengthy one. The only trouble with it was that everything

reported was duplication of work that had been done centuries before.

Well, no. A Dr. Dandrik, of the physics department of the Imperial

University here in Asgard announced that a definite limit of accuracy in

measuring the velocity of accelerated subnucleonic particles had been

established--16.067543333--times light-speed. That seemed to be typical;

the frontiers of science, now, were all decimal points. The Ministry of

Education had a little to offer; historical scholarship was still

active, at least. He was reading about a new trove of source-material

that had come to light on Uller, from the Sixth Century Atomic Era, when

the door screen buzzed and flashed.



* * * * *



He lit it, and his son Rodrik appeared in it, with Snooks, the little

red hound, squirming excitedly in the Crown Prince's arms. The dog began

barking at once, and the boy called through the phone:



"Good morning, father; are you busy?"



"Oh, not at all." He pressed the release button. "Come on in."



Immediately, the little hound leaped out of the princely arms and came

dashing into the study and around the desk, jumping onto his lap. The

boy followed more slowly, sitting down in the deskside chair and drawing

his foot up under him. Paul greeted Snooks first--people can wait, but

for little dogs everything has to be right now--and rummaged in a drawer

until he found some wafers, holding one for Snooks to nibble. Then he

became aware that his son was wearing leather shorts and tall buskins.



"Going out somewhere?" he asked, a trifle enviously.



"Up in the mountains, for a picnic. Olva's going along."



And his tutor, and his esquire, and Olva's companion-lady, and a dozen

Thoran riflemen, of course, and they'd be in continuous screen-contact

with the Palace.



"That ought to be a lot of fun. Did you get all your lessons done?"



"Physics and math and galactiography," Rodrik told him. "And Professor

Guilsan's going to give me and Olva our history after lunch."



They talked about lessons, and about the picnic. Of course, Snooks was

going on the picnic, too. It was evident, though, that Rodrik had

something else on his mind. After a while, he came out with it.



"Father, you know I've been a little afraid, lately," he said.



"Well, tell me about it, son. It isn't anything about you and Olva, is

it?"



Rod was fourteen; the little Princess Olva thirteen. They would be

marriageable in six years. As far as anybody could tell, they were both

quite happy about the marriage which had been arranged for them years

ago.



"Oh, no; nothing like that. But Olva's sister and a couple others of

mother's ladies-in-waiting were to a psi-medium, and the medium told

them that there were going to be changes. Great and frightening changes

was what she said."



"She didn't specify?"



"No. Just that: great and frightening changes. But the only change of

that kind I can think of would be ... well, something happening to you."



Snooks, having eaten three wafers, was trying to lick his ear. He pushed

the little dog back into his lap and pummeled him gently with his left

hand.



"You mustn't let mediums' gabble worry you, son. These psi-mediums have

real powers, but they can't turn them off and on like a water tap. When

they don't get anything, they don't like to admit it, and they invent

things. Always generalities like that; never anything specific."



"I know all that." The boy seemed offended, as though somebody were

explaining that his mother hadn't really found him out in the rose

garden. "But they talked about it to some of their friends, and it seems

that other mediums are saying the same thing. Father, do you remember

when the Haval Valley reactor blew up? All over Odin, the mediums had

been talking about a terrible accident, for a month before that

happened."



"I remember that." Harv Dorflay believed that somebody had been falsely

informed that the emperor would visit the plant that day. "These great

and frightening changes will probably turn out to be a new fad in

abstract sculpture. Any change frightens most people."



They talked more about mediums, and then about aircars and aircar

racing, and about the Emperor's Cup race that was to be flown in a

month. The communications screen began flashing and buzzing, and after

he had silenced it with the busy-button for the third time, Rodrik said

that it was time for him to go, came around to gather up Snooks, and

went out, saying that he'd be home in time for the banquet. The screen

began to flash again as he went out.



* * * * *



It was Prince Ganzay, the Prime Minister. He looked as though he had a

persistent low-level toothache, but that was his ordinary expression.



"Sorry to bother Your Majesty. It's about these chiefs-of-state. Count

Gadvan, the Chamberlain, appealed to me, and I feel I should ask your

advice. It's the matter of precedence."



"Well, we have a fixed rule on that. Which one arrived first?"



"Why, the Adityan, but it seems King Ranulf insists that he's entitled

to precedence, or, rather, his Lord Marshal does. This Lord Koreff

insists that his king is not going to yield precedence to a commoner."






"Then he can go home to Durendal!" He felt himself growing angry--all

the little angers of the morning were focusing on one spot. He forced

the harshness out of his voice. "At a court function, somebody has to go

first, and our rule is order of arrival at the Palace. That rule was

established to avoid violating the principle of equality to all

civilized peoples and all planetary governments. We're not going to set

it aside for the King of Durendal, or anybody else."



Prince Ganzay nodded. Some of the toothache expression had gone out of

his face, now that he had been relieved of the decision.



"Of course, Your Majesty." He brightened a little. "Do you think we

might compromise? Alternate the precedence, I mean?"



"Only if this First Citizen Yaggo consents. If he does, it would be a

good idea."



"I'll talk to him, sir." The toothache expression came back. "Another

thing, Your Majesty. They've both been invited to attend the Plenary

Session, this afternoon."



"Well, no trouble there; they can enter by different doors and sit in

visitors' boxes at opposite ends of the hall."



"Well, sir, I wasn't thinking of precedence. But this is to be an

Elective Session--new Ministers to replace Prince Havaly, of Defense,

deceased, and Count Frask, of Science and Technology, elevated to the

Bench. There seems to be some difference of opinion among some of the

Ministers and Counselors. It's very possible that the Session may

degenerate into an outright controversy."



"Horrible," Paul said seriously. "I think, though, that our

distinguished guests will see that the Empire can survive difference of

opinion, and even outright controversy. But if you think it might have a

bad effect, why not postpone the election?"



"Well--It's been postponed three times, already, sir."



"Postpone it permanently. Advertise for bids on two robot Ministers,

Defense, and Science and Technology. If they're a success, we can set up

a project to design a robot emperor."



The Prime Minister's face actually twitched and blanched at the

blasphemy. "Your Majesty is joking," he said, as though he wanted to be

reassured on the point.



"Unfortunately, I am. If my job could be robotized, maybe I could take

my wife and my son and our little dog and go fishing for a while."



But, of course, he couldn't. There were only two alternatives: the

Empire or Galactic anarchy. The galaxy was too big to hold general

elections, and there had to be a supreme ruler, and a positive and

automatic--which meant hereditary--means of succession.



"Whose opinion seems to differ from whose, and about what?" he asked.



"Well, Count Duklass and Count Tammsan want to have the Ministry of

Science and Technology abolished, and its functions and personnel

distributed. Count Duklass means to take over the technological sections

under Economics, and Count Tammsan will take over the science part under

Education. The proposal is going to be introduced at this Session by

Count Guilfred, the Minister of Health and Sanity. He hopes to get some

of the bio-and psycho-science sections for his own Ministry."



"That's right. Duklass gets the hide, Tammsan gets the head and horns,

and everybody who hunts with them gets a cut of the meat. That's good

sound law of the chase. I'm not in favor of it, myself. Prince Ganzay,

at this session, I wish you'd get Captain-General Dorflay nominated for

the Bench. I feel that it is about time to honor him with elevation."



"General Dorflay? But why, Your Majesty?"



"Great galaxy, do you have to ask? Why, because the man's a raving

lunatic. He oughtn't even to be trusted with a sidearm, let alone five

companies of armed soldiers. Do you know what he told me this morning?"



"That somebody is training a Nidhog swamp-crawler to crawl up the

Octagon Tower and bite you at breakfast, I suppose. But hasn't that been

going on for quite a while, sir?"



"It was a gimmick in one of the cooking robots, but that's aside from

the question. He's finally named the master mind behind all these

nightmares of his, and who do you think it is? Yorn Travann!"



* * * * *



The Prime Minister's face grew graver than usual. Well, it was something

to look grave about; some of these days----



"Your Majesty, I couldn't possibly agree more about the general's mental

condition, but I really should say that, crazy or not, he is not alone

in his suspicions of Prince Travann. If sharing them makes me a lunatic,

too, so be it, but share them I do."



Paul felt his eyebrows lift in surprise. "That's quite too much and too

little, Prince Ganzay," he said.



"With your permission, I'll elaborate. Don't think that I suspect Prince

Travann of any childish pranks with elevators or viewscreens or

cooking-robots," the Prime Minister hastened to disclaim, "but I

definitely do suspect him of treasonous ambitions. I suppose Your

Majesty knows that he is the first Minister of Security in centuries who

has assumed personal control of both the planetary and municipal police,

instead of delegating his ex officio powers.



"Your Majesty may not know, however, of some of the peculiar uses he has

been making of those authorities. Does Your Majesty know that he has

recruited the Security Guard up to at least ten times the strength

needed to meet any conceivable peace-maintenance problem on this planet,

and that he has been piling up huge quantities of heavy combat

equipment--guns up to 200-millimeter, heavy contragravity, even

gun-cutters and bomb-and-rocket boats? And does Your Majesty know that

most of this armament is massed within fifteen minutes' flight-time of

this Palace? Or that Prince Travann has at his disposal from two and a

half to three times, in men and firepower, the combined strength of the

Planetary Militia and the Imperial Army on this planet?"



"I know. It has my approval. He's trying to salvage some of the young

nonworkers through exposing them to military discipline. A good many of

them, I believe, have gone off-planet on their discharge from the SG and

hired as mercenaries, which is a far better profession than vote

selling."



"Quite a plausible explanation: Prince Travann is nothing if not

plausible," the Prime Minister agreed. "And does Your Majesty know that,

because of repeated demands for support from the Ministry of Security,

the Imperial Navy has been scattered all over the Empire, and that there

is not a naval craft bigger than a scout-boat within fifteen hundred

light-years of Odin?"



That was absolutely true. Paul could only nod agreement. Prince Ganzay

continued:



"He has been doing some peculiar things as Police Chief of Asgard, too.

For instance, there are two powerful nonworkers' voting-bloc bosses, Big

Moogie Blisko and Zikko the Nose--I assure Your Majesty that I am not

inventing these names; that's what the persons are actually called--who

have been enjoying the favor and support of Prince Travann. On a number

of occasions, their smaller rivals, leaders of less important gangs,

have been arrested, often on trumped-up charges, and held incommunicado

until either Moogie or Zikko could move into their territories and annex

their nonworker followers. These two bloc-bosses are subsidized,

respectively, by the Steel and Shipbuilding Cartels and by the Reaction

Products and Chemical Cartels, but actually, they are controlled by

Prince Travann. They, in turn, control between them about seventy per

cent of the nonworkers in Asgard."



"And you think this adds up to a plot against the Throne?"



"A plot to seize the Throne, Your Majesty."



"Oh, come, Prince Ganzay! You're talking like Dorflay!"



"Hear me out, Your Majesty. His Imperial Highness is fourteen years old;

it will be eleven years before he will be legally able to assume the

powers of emperor. In the dreadful event of your immediate death, it

would mean a regency for that long. Of course, your Ministers and

Counselors would be the ones to name the Regent, but I know how they

would vote with Security Guard bayonets at their throats. And regency

might not be the limit of Prince Travann's ambitions."



"In your own words, quite plausible, Prince Ganzay. It rests, however,

on a very questionable foundation. The assumption that Prince Travann is

stupid enough to want the Throne."



He had to terminate the conversation himself and blank the screen.

Viktor Ganzay was still staring at him in shocked incredulity when his

image vanished. Viktor Ganzay could not imagine anybody not wanting the

Throne, not even the man who had to sit on it.



* * * * *



He sat, for a while, looking at the darkened screen, a little worried.

Viktor Ganzay had a much better intelligence service than he had

believed. He wondered how much Ganzay had found out that he hadn't

mentioned. Then he went back to the reports. He had gotten down to the

Ministry of Fine Arts when the communications screen began calling

attention to itself again.



When he flipped the switch, a woman smiled out of it at him. Her blond

hair was rumpled, and she wore a dressing gown; her smile brightened as

his face appeared in her screen.



"Hi!" she greeted him.



"Hi, yourself. You just get up?"



She raised a hand to cover a yawn. "I'll bet you've been up reigning for

hours. Were Rod and Snooks in to see you yet?"



He nodded. "They just left. Rod's going on a picnic with Olva in the

mountains." How long had it been since he and Marris had been on a

picnic--a real picnic, with less than fifty guards and as many courtiers

along? "Do you have much reigning to do, this afternoon?"



She grimaced. "Flower Festivals. I have to make personal tri-di

appearances, live, with messages for the loving subjects. Three minutes

on, and a two-minute break between. I have forty for this afternoon."



"Ugh! Well, have a good time, sweetheart. All I have is lunch with the

Bench, and then this Plenary Session." He told her about Ganzay's fear

of outright controversy.



"Oh, fun! Maybe somebody'll pull somebody's whiskers, or something. I'm

in on that, too."



The call-indicator in front of him began glowing with the code-symbol of

the Minister of Security.



"We can always hope, can't we? Well, Yorn Travann's trying to get me,

now."



"Don't keep him waiting. Maybe I can see you before the Session." She

made a kissing motion with her lips at him, and blanked the screen.



He flipped the switch again, and Prince Travann was on the screen. The

Security Minister didn't waste time being sorry to bother him.



"Your Majesty, a report's just come in that there's a serious riot at

the University; between five and ten thousand students are attacking the

Administration Center, lobbing stench bombs into it, and threatening to

hang Chancellor Khane. They have already overwhelmed and disarmed the

campus police, and I've sent two companies of the Gendarme riot brigade,

under an officer I can trust to handle things firmly but intelligently.

We don't want any indiscriminate stunning or tear-gassing or shooting;

all sorts of people can have sons and daughters mixed up in a student

riot."





"Yes. I seem to recall student riots in which the sons of his late

Highness Prince Travann and his late Majesty Rodrik XXI were involved."

He deliberated the point for a moment, and added: "This scarcely sounds

like a frat-fight or a panty-raid, though. What seems to have triggered

it?"



"The story I got--a rather hysterical call for help from Khane

himself--is that they're protesting an action of his in dismissing a

faculty member. I have a couple of undercovers at the University, and

I'm trying to contact them. I sent more undercovers, who could pass for

students, ahead of the Gendarmes to get the student side of it and the

names of the ring-leaders." He glanced down at the indicator in front of

him, which had begun to glow. "If you'll pardon me, sir, Count Tammsan's

trying to get me. He may have particulars. I'll call Your Majesty back

when I learn anything more."



* * * * *



There hadn't been anything like that at the University within the memory

of the oldest old grad. Chancellor Khane, he knew, was a stupid and

arrogant old windbag with a swollen sense of his own importance. He made

a small bet with himself that the whole thing was Khane's fault, but he

wondered what lay behind it, and what would come out of it. Great

plagues from little microbes start. Great and frightening changes----



The screen got itself into an uproar, and he flipped the switch. It was

Viktor Ganzay again. He looked as though his permanent toothache had

deserted him for the moment.



"Sorry to bother Your Majesty, but it's all fixed up," he reported.

"First Citizen Yaggo agreed to alternate in precedence with King Ranulf,

and Lord Koreff has withdrawn all his objections. As far as I can see,

at present, there should be no trouble."



"Fine. I suppose you heard about the excitement at the University?"



"Oh, yes, Your Majesty. Disgraceful affair!"



"Simply shocking. What seems to have started it, have you heard?" he

asked. "All I know is that the students were protesting the dismissal of

a faculty member. He must have been exceptionally popular, or else he

got a more than ordinary raw deal from Khane."



"Well, as to that, sir, I can't say. All I learned was that it was the

result of some faculty squabble in one of the science departments; the

grounds for the dismissal were insubordination and contempt for

authority."



"I always thought that when authority began inspiring contempt, it had

stopped being authority. Did you say science? This isn't going to help

Duklass and Tammsan any."



"I'm afraid not, Your Majesty." Ganzay didn't look particularly

regretful. "The News Cartel's gotten hold of it and are using it; it'll

be all over the Empire."



He said that as though it meant something. Well, maybe it did; a lot of

Ministers and almost all the Counselors spent most of their time

worrying about what people on planets like Chermosh and Zarathustra and

Deirdre and Quetzalcoatl might think, in ignorance of the fact that

interest in Empire politics varied inversely as the square of the

distance to Odin and the level of corruption and inefficiency of the

local government.



"I notice you'll be at the Bench luncheon. Do you think you could invite

our guests, too? We could have an informal presentation before it

starts. Can do? Good. I'll be seeing you there."



When the screen was blanked, he returned to the reports, ran them off

hastily to make sure that nothing had been red-starred, and called a

robot to clear the projector. After a while, Prince Travann called

again.



"Sorry to bother Your Majesty, but I have most of the facts on the riot,

now. What happened was that Chancellor Khane sacked a professor, physics

department, under circumstances which aroused resentment among the

science students. Some of them walked out of class and went to the

stadium to hold a protest meeting, and the thing snowballed until half

the students were in it. Khane lost his head and ordered the campus

police to clear the stadium; the students rushed them and swamped them.

I hope, for their sakes, that none of my men ever let anything like that

happen. The man I sent, a Colonel Handrosan, managed to talk the

students into going back to the stadium and continuing the meeting under

Gendarme protection."



"Sounds like a good man."



"Very good, Your Majesty. Especially in handling disturbances. I have

complete confidence in him. He's also investigating the background of

the affair. I'll give Your Majesty what he's learned, to date. It seems

that the head of the physics department, a Professor Nelse Dandrik, had

been conducting an experiment, assisted by a Professor Klenn Faress, to

establish more accurately the velocity of subnucleonic particles, beta

micropositos, I believe. Dandrik's story, as relayed to Handrosan by

Khane, is that he reached a limit and the apparatus began giving erratic

results."



Prince Travann stopped to light a cigarette. "At this point, Professor

Dandrik ordered the experiment stopped, and Professor Faress insisted on

continuing. When Dandrik ordered the apparatus dismantled, Faress became

rather emotional about it--obscenely abusive and threatening, according

to Dandrik. Dandrik complained to Khane, Khane ordered Faress to

apologize, Faress refused, and Khane dismissed Faress. Immediately, the

students went on strike. Faress confirmed the whole story, and he added

one small detail that Dandrik hadn't seen fit to mention. According to

him, when these micropositos were accelerated beyond sixteen and a

fraction times light-speed, they began registering at the target before

the source registered the emission."



"Yes, I--What did you say?"



Prince Travann repeated it slowly, distinctly and tonelessly.



"That was what I thought you said. Well, I'm going to insist on a

complete investigation, including a repetition of the experiment. Under

direction of Professor Faress."



"Yes, Your Majesty. And when that happens, I mean to be on hand

personally. If somebody is just before discovering time-travel, I think

Security has a very substantial interest in it."



The Prime Minister called back to confirm that First Citizen Yaggo and

King Ranulf would be at the luncheon. The Chamberlain, Count Gadvan,

called with a long and dreary problem about the protocol for the

banquet. Finally, at noon, he flashed a signal for General Dorflay,

waited five minutes, and then left his desk and went out, to find the

mad general and his wirehaired soldiers drawn up in the hall.



* * * * *



There were more Thorans on the South Upper Terrace, and after a flurry

of porting and presenting and ordering arms and hand-saluting, the Prime

Minister advanced and escorted him to where the Bench of Counselors, all

thirty of them, total age close to twenty-eight hundred years, were

drawn up in a rough crescent behind the three distinguished guests. The

King of Durendal wore a cloth-of-silver leotard and pink tights, and a

belt of gold links on which he carried a jeweled dagger only slightly

thicker than a knitting needle. He was slender and willowy, and he had

large and soulful eyes, and the royal beautician must have worked on him

for a couple of hours. Wait till Marris sees this; oh, brother!



Koreff, the Lord Marshal, wore what was probably the standard costume of

Durendal, a fairly long jerkin with short sleeves, and knee-boots, and

his dress dagger looked as though it had been designed for use. Lord

Koreff looked as though he would be quite willing and able to use it; he

was fleshy and full-faced, with hard muscles under the flesh.



First Citizen Yaggo, People's Manager-in-Chief of and for the Planetary

Commonwealth of Aditya, wore a one-piece white garment like a mechanic's

coveralls, with the emblem of his government and the numeral 1 on his

breast. He carried no dagger; if he had worn a dress weapon, it would

probably have been a slide rule. His head was completely shaven, and he

had small, pale eyes and a rat-trap mouth. He was regarding the

Durendalians with a distaste that was all too evidently reciprocated.



King Ranulf appeared to have won the toss for first presentation. He

squeezed the Imperial hand in both of his and looked up adoringly as he

professed his deep honor and pleasure. Yaggo merely clasped both his

hands in front of the emblem on his chest and raised them quickly to the

level of his chin, saying: "At the service of the Imperial State," and

adding, as though it hurt him, "Your Imperial Majesty." Not being a

chief of state, Lord Koreff came third; he merely shook hands and said,

"A great honor, Your Imperial Majesty, and the thanks, both of myself

and my royal master, for a most gracious reception." The attempt to grab

first place having failed, he was more than willing to forget the whole

subject. There was a chance that finding a way to dispose of the grain

surplus might make the difference between his staying in power at home

or not.



Fortunately, the three guests had already met the Bench of Counselors.

Immediately after the presentation of Lord Koreff, they all started the

two hundred yards march to the luncheon pavilion, the King of Durendal

clinging to his left arm and First Citizen Yaggo stumping dourly on his

right, with Prince Ganzay beyond him and Lord Koreff on Ranulf's left.



"Do you plan to stay long on Odin?" he asked the king.



"Oh. I'd love to stay for simply months! Everything is so

wonderful, here in Asgard; it makes our little capital of Roncevaux

seem so utterly provincial. I'm going to tell Your Imperial Majesty a

secret. I'm going to see if I can lure some of your wonderful ballet

dancers back to Durendal with me. Aren't I naughty, raiding Your

Imperial Majesty's theaters?"



"In keeping with the traditions of your people," he replied gravely.

"You Sword-Worlders used to raid everywhere you went."



"I'm afraid those bad old days are long past, Your Imperial Majesty,"

Lord Koreff said. "But we Sword-Worlders got around the galaxy, for a

while. In fact, I seem to remember reading that some of our brethren

from Morglay or Flamberge even occupied Aditya for a couple of

centuries. Not that you'd guess it to look at Aditya now."



* * * * *



It was First Citizen Yaggo's turn to take precedence--the seat on the

right of the throne chair. Lord Koreff sat on Ranulf's left, and, to

balance him, Prince Ganzay sat beyond Yaggo and dutifully began

inquiring of the People's Manager-in-Chief about the structure of his

government, launching him on a monologue that promised to last at least

half the luncheon. That left the King of Durendal to Paul; for a start,

he dropped a compliment on the cloth-of-silver leotard.



King Ranulf laughed dulcetly, brushed the garment with his fingertips,

and said that it was just a simple thing patterned after the Durendalian

peasant costume.



"You have peasants on Durendal?"



"Oh, dear, yes! Such quaint, charming people. Of course, they're all

poor, and they wear such funny ragged clothes, and travel about in

rackety old aircars, it's a wonder they don't fall apart in the air. But

they're so wonderfully happy and carefree. I often wish I were one of

them, instead of king."



"Nonworking class, Your Imperial Majesty," Lord Koreff explained.



"On Aditya," First Citizen Yaggo declared, "there are no classes, and on

Aditya everybody works. 'From each according to his ability; to each

according to his need.'"



"On Aditya," an elderly Counselor four places to the right of him said

loudly to his neighbor, "they don't call them classes, they call them

sociological categories, and they have nineteen of them. And on Aditya,

they don't call them nonworkers, they call them occupational reservists,

and they have more of them than we do."



"But of course, I was born a king," Ranulf said sadly and nobly. "I have

a duty to my people."



"No, they don't vote at all," Lord Koreff was telling the Counselor on

his left. "On Durendal, you have to pay taxes before you can vote."



"On Aditya the crime of taxation does not exist," the First Citizen told



the Prime Minister.



"On Aditya," the Counselor four places down said to his neighbor,

"there's nothing to tax. The state owns all the property, and if the

Imperial Constitution and the Space Navy let them, the State would own

all the people, too. Don't tell me about Aditya. First big-ship command

I had was the old Invictus, 374, and she was based on Aditya for four

years, and I'd sooner have spent that time in orbit around Niffelheim."



Now Paul remembered who he was; old Admiral--now

Prince-Counselor--Gaklar. He and Prince-Counselor Dorflay would get

along famously. The Lord Marshal of Durendal was replying to some

objection somebody had made:






"No, nothing of the sort. We hold the view that every civil or political

right implies a civil or political obligation. The citizen has a right

to protection from the Realm, for instance; he therefore has the

obligation to defend the Realm. And his right to participate in the

government of the Realm includes his obligation to support the Realm

financially. Well, we tax only property; if a nonworker acquires taxable

property, he has to go to work to earn the taxes. I might add that our

nonworkers are very careful to avoid acquiring taxable property."



"But if they don't have votes to sell, what do they live on?" a

Counselor asked in bewilderment.



"The nobility supports them; the landowners, the trading barons, the

industrial lords. The more nonworking adherents they have, the greater

their prestige." And the more rifles they could muster when they

quarreled with their fellow nobles, of course. "Beside, if we didn't do

that, they'd turn brigand, and it costs less to support them than to

have to hunt them out of the brush and hang them."



"On Aditya, brigandage does not exist."



"On Aditya, all the brigands belong to the Secret Police, only on Aditya

they don't call them Secret Police, they call them Servants of the

People, Ninth Category."



A shadow passed quickly over the pavilion, and then another. He glanced

up quickly, to see two long black troop carriers, emblazoned with the

Sun and Cogwheel and armored fist of Security, pass back of the Octagon

Tower and let down on the north landing stage. A third followed. He rose

quickly.



"Please remain seated, gentlemen, and continue with the luncheon. If you

will excuse me for a moment, I'll be back directly." I hope, he added

mentally.



* * * * *



Captain-General Dorflay, surrounded by a dozen officers, Thoran and

human, had arrived on the lower terrace at the base of the Octagon

Tower. They had a full Thoran rifle company with them. As he went down

to them, Dorflay hurried forward.



"It has come, Your Majesty!" he said, as soon as he could make himself

heard without raising his voice. "We are all ready to die with Your

Majesty!"



"Oh, I doubt it'll come quite to that, Harv," he said. "But just to be

on the safe side, take that company and the gentlemen who are with you

and get up to the mountains and join the Crown Prince and his party.

Here." He took a notepad from his belt pouch and wrote rapidly, sealing

the note and giving it to Dorflay. "Give this to His Highness, and place

yourself under his orders. I know; he's just a boy, but he has a good

head. Obey him exactly in everything, but under no circumstances return

to the Palace or allow him to return until I call you."



"Your Majesty is ordering me away?" The old soldier was aghast.



"An emperor who has a son can be spared. An emperor's son who is too

young to marry can't. You know that."



Harv Dorflay was only mad on one subject, and even within the frame of

his madness he was intensely logical. He nodded. "Yes, Your Imperial

Majesty. We both serve the Empire as best we can. And I will guard the

little Princess Olva, too." He grasped Paul's hand, said, "Farewell,

Your Majesty!" and dashed away, gathering his staff and the company of

Thorans as he went. In an instant, they had vanished down the nearest

rampway.



The emperor watched their departure, and, at the same time, saw a big

black aircar, bearing the three-mooned planet, argent on sable, of

Travann, let down onto the south landing stage, and another troop

carrier let down after it. Four men left the aircar--Yorn, Prince

Travann, and three officers in the black of the Security Guard. Prince

Ganzay had also left the table: he came from one direction as Prince

Travann advanced from the other. They converged on the emperor.



"What's happening here, Prince Travann?" Prince Ganzay demanded. "Why

are you bringing all these troops to the Palace?"



"Your Majesty," Prince Travann said smoothly, "I trust that you will

pardon this disturbance. I'm sure nothing serious will happen, but I

didn't dare take chances. The students from the University are marching

on the Palace--perfectly peaceful and loyal procession; they're bringing

a petition for Your Majesty--but on the way, while passing through a

nonworkers' district, they were attacked by a gang of hooligans

connected with a voting-bloc boss called Nutchy the Knife. None of the

students were hurt, and Colonel Handrosan got the procession out of the

district promptly, and then dropped some of his men, who have since been

re-enforced, to deal with the hooligans. That's still going on, and

these riots are like forest fires; you never know when they'll shift and

get out of control. I hope the men I brought won't be needed here.

Really, they're a reserve for the riot work; I won't commit them,

though, until I'm sure the Palace is safe."



He nodded. "Prince Travann, how soon do you estimate that the student

procession will arrive here?" he asked.



"They're coming on foot, Your Majesty. I'd give them an hour, at least."



"Well, Prince Travann, will you have one of your officers see that the

public-address screen in front is ready; I'll want to talk to them when

they arrive. And meanwhile, I'll want to talk to Chancellor Khane,

Professor Dandrik, Professor Faress and Colonel Handrosan, together. And

Count Tammsan, too; Prince Ganzay, will you please screen him and invite

him here immediately?"



"Now, Your Majesty?" At first, the Prime Minister was trying to suppress

a look of incredulity; then he was trying to keep from showing

comprehension. "Yes, Your Majesty; at once." He frowned slightly when he

saw two of the Security Guard officers salute Prince Travann instead of

the emperor before going away. Then he turned and hurried toward the

Octagon Tower.



* * * * *



The officer who had gone to the aircar to use the radio returned and

reported that Colonel Handrosan was bringing the Chancellor and both

professors from the University in his command-car, having anticipated

that they would be wanted. Paul nodded in pleasure.



"You have a good man there, Prince," he said. "Keep an eye on him."



"I know it, Your Majesty. To tell the truth, it was he who organized

this march. Thought they'd be better employed coming here to petition

you than milling around the University getting into further mischief."



The other officer also returned, bringing a portable viewscreen with him

on a contragravity-lifter. By this time, the Bench of Counselors and the

three off-planet guests had become anxious and left the luncheon

pavilion in a body. The Counselors were looking about uneasily,

noticing the black uniformed Security Guards who had left the troop

carrier and were taking position by squads all around the emperor. First

Citizen Yaggo, and King Ranulf and Lord Koreff, also seemed uneasy. They

were avoiding the proximity of Paul as though he had the green death.



The viewscreen came on, and in it the city, as seen from an aircar at

two thousand feet, spread out with the Palace visible in the distance,

the golden pile of the Octagon Tower jutting up from it. The car

carrying the pickup was behind the procession, which was moving toward

the Palace along one of the broad skyways, with Gendarmes and Security

Guards leading, following and flanking. There were a few Imperial and

planetary and school flags, but none of the quantity-made banners and

placards which always betray a planned demonstration.



Prince Ganzay had been gone for some time, now. When he returned, he

drew Paul aside.



"Your Majesty," he whispered softly, "I tried to summon Army troops, but

it'll be hours before any can get here. And the Militia can't be

mobilized in anything less than a day. There are only five thousand Army

Regulars on Odin, now, anyhow."



And half of them officers and noncoms of skeleton regiments. Like the

Navy, the Army had been scattered all over the Empire--on Behemoth and

Amida and Xipetotec and Astarte and Jotunnheim--in response to calls for

support from Security.



"Let's have a look at this rioting, Prince Travann," one of the less

decrepit Counselors, a retired general, said. "I want to see how your

people are handling it."



The officers who had come with Prince Travann consulted briefly, and

then got another pickup on the screen. This must have been a regular

public pickup, on the front of a tall building. It was a couple of miles

farther away; the Palace was visible only as a tiny glint from the

Octagon Tower, on the skyline. Half a dozen Security aircars were

darting about, two of them chasing a battered civilian vehicle and

firing at it. On rooftops and terraces and skyways, little clumps of

Security Guards were skirmishing, dodging from cover to cover, and

sometimes individuals or groups in civilian clothes fired back at them.

There was a surprising absence of casualties.



"Your Majesty!" the old general hissed in a scandalized whisper. "That's

nothing but a big fake! Look, they're all firing blanks! The rifles

hardly kick at all, and there's too much smoke for propellant-powder."



"I noticed that." This riot must have been carefully prepared, long in

advance. Yet the student riot seemed to have been entirely spontaneous.

That puzzled him; he wished he knew just what Yorn Travann was up to.

"Just keep quiet about it," he advised.



* * * * *



More aircars were arriving, big and luxurious, emblazoned with the arms

of some of the most distinguished families in Asgard. One of the first

to let down bore the device of Duklass, and from it the Minister of

Economics, the Minister of Education, and a couple of other Ministers,

alighted. Count Duklass went at once to Prince Travann, drawing him away

from King Ranulf and Lord Koreff and talking to him rapidly and

earnestly. Count Tammsan approached at a swift half-run.



"Save Your Majesty!" he greeted, breathlessly. "What's going on, sir? We

heard something about some petty brawl at the University, that Prince

Ganzay had become alarmed about, but now there seems to be fighting all

over the city. I never saw anything like it; on the way here we had to

go up to ten thousand feet to get over a battle, and there's a vast

crowd on the Avenue of the Arts, and----" He took in the Security

Guards. "Your Majesty, just what is going on?"



"Great and frightening changes." Count Tammsan started; he must have

been to a psi-medium, too. "But I think the Empire is going to survive

them. There may even be a few improvements, before things are done."



A blue-uniformed Gendarme officer approached Prince Travann, drawing him

away from Count Duklass and speaking briefly to him. The Minister of

Security nodded, then turned back to the Minister of Economics. They

talked for a few moments longer, then clasped hands, and Travann left

Duklass with his face wreathed in smiles. The Gendarme officer

accompanied him as he approached.



"Your Majesty, this is Colonel Handrosan, the officer who handled the

affair at the University."



"And a very good piece of work, colonel." He shook hands with him.

"Don't be surprised if it's remembered next Honors Day. Did you bring

Khane and the two professors?"



"They're down on the lower landing-stage, Your Majesty. We're delaying

the students, to give Your Majesty time to talk to them."



"We'll see them now. My study will do." The officer saluted and went

away. He turned to Count Tammsan. "That's why I asked Prince Ganzay to

invite you here. This thing's become too public to be ignored; some sort

of action will have to be taken. I'm going to talk to the students; I

want to find out just what happened before I commit myself to anything.

Well, gentlemen, let's go to my study."



Count Tammsan looked around, bewildered. "But I don't understand----" He

fell into step with Paul and the Minister of Security; a squad of

Security Guards fell in behind them. "I don't understand what's

happening," he complained.



An emperor about to have his throne yanked out from under him, and a

minister about to stage a coup d'etat, taking time out to settle a

trifling academic squabble. One thing he did understand, though, was

that the Ministry of Education was getting some very bad publicity at a

time when it could be least afforded. Prince Travann was telling him

about the hooligans' attack on the marching students, and that worried

him even more. Nonworking hooligans acted as voting-bloc bosses ordered;

voting-bloc bosses acted on orders from the political manipulators of

Cartels and pressure-groups, and action downward through the nonworkers

was usually accompanied by action upward through influences to which

ministers were sensitive.



* * * * *



There were a dozen Security Guards in black tunics, and as many

Household Thorans in red kilts, in the hall outside the study,

fraternizing amicably. They hurried apart and formed two ranks, and the

Thoran officer with them saluted.



Going into the study, he went to his desk; Count Tammsan lit a cigarette

and puffed nervously, and sat down as though he were afraid the chair

would collapse under him. Prince Travann sank into another chair and

relaxed, closing his eyes. There was a bit of wafer on the floor by

Paul's chair, dropped by the little dog that morning. He stooped and

picked it up, laying it on his desk, and sat looking at it until the

door screen flashed and buzzed. Then he pressed the release button.



Colonel Handrosan ushered the three University men in ahead of

him--Khane, with a florid, arrogant face that showed worry under the

arrogance; Dandrik, gray-haired and stoop-shouldered, looking irritated;

Faress, young, with a scrubby red mustache, looking bellicose. He

greeted them collectively and invited them to sit, and there was a brief

uncomfortable silence which everybody expected him to break.



"Well, gentlemen," he said, "we want to get the facts about this affair

in some kind of order. I wish you'd tell me, as briefly and as

completely as possible, what you know about it."



"There's the man who started it!" Khane declared, pointing at Faress.



"Professor Faress had nothing to do with it," Colonel Handrosan stated

flatly. "He and his wife were in their apartment, packing to move out,

when it started. Somebody called him and told him about the fighting at

the stadium, and he went there at once to talk his students into

dispersing. By that time, the situation was completely out of hand; he

could do nothing with the students.



"Well, I think we ought to find out, first of all, why Professor Faress

was dismissed," Prince Travann said. "It will take a good deal to

convince me that any teacher able to inspire such loyalty in his

students is a bad teacher, or deserves dismissal."



"As I understand," Paul said, "the dismissal was the result of a

disagreement between Professor Faress and Professor Dandrik about an

experiment on which they were working. I believe, an experiment to fix

more exactly the velocity of accelerated subnucleonic particles. Beta

micropositos, wasn't it, Chancellor Khane?"



Khane looked at him in surprise. "Your Majesty, I know nothing about

that. Professor Dandrik is head of the physics department; he came to

me, about six months ago, and told me that in his opinion this

experiment was desirable. I simply deferred to his judgment and

authorized it."



"Your Majesty has just stated the purpose of the experiment," Dandrik

said. "For centuries, there have been inaccuracies in mathematical

descriptions of subnucleonic events, and this experiment was undertaken

in the hope of eliminating these inaccuracies." He went into a lengthy

mathematical explanation.



"Yes, I understand that, professor. But just what was the actual

experiment, in terms of physical operations?"



* * * * *



Dandrik looked helpless for a moment. Faress, who had been choking back

a laugh, interrupted:



"Your Majesty, we were using the big turbo-linear accelerator to project

fast micropositos down an evacuated tube one kilometer in length, and

clocking them with light, the velocity of whic