o protect the deck
from gunfire. Zortan Brend inquired of the petty officer in charge of
the work as to the necessity.

"We've been getting reports of trouble at Darsh, sir," the man said.
"Newscast bulletins every couple of minutes: rioting in different
parts of the city. Started yesterday afternoon, when a couple of
Statisticalist members of the Executive Council resigned and went over
to the Volitionalists. Lord Nirzav of Shonna, the only nobleman of any
importance in the Statisticalist Party, was one of them; he was shot
immediately afterward, while leaving the Council Chambers, along with
a couple of Assassins who were with him. Some people in an airboat
sprayed them with a machine rifle as they came out onto the landing
stage."

The two Assassins exclaimed in horrified anger over this.

"That wasn't the work of members of the Society of Assassins!" Olirzon
declared. "Even after he'd resigned, the Lord Nirzav was still immune
till he left the Government Building. There's too blasted much illegal
assassination going on!"

"What happened next?" Verkan Vall wanted to know.

"About what you'd expect, sir. The Volitionalists weren't going to
take that quietly. In the past eighteen hours, four prominent
Statisticalists were forcibly discarnated, and there was even a fight
in Mirzark of Bashad's house, when Volitionalist Assassins broke in;
three of them and four of Mirzark's Assassins were discarnated."

"You know, something is going to have to be done about that, too,"
Olirzon said to Marnik. "It's getting to a point where these political
faction fights are being carried on entirely between members of the
Society. In Ghamma alone, last year, thirty or forty of our members
were discarnated that way."

"Plug in a newscast visiplate, Karnil," Zortan Brend told the petty
officer. "Let's see what's going on in Darsh now."

In Darsh, it seemed, an uneasy peace was being established. Verkan
Vall watched heavily-armed airboats and light combat ships patrolling
among the high towers of the city. He saw a couple of minor riots
being broken up by the blue-uniformed Constabulary, with considerable
shooting and a ruthless disregard for who might get shot. It wasn't
exactly the sort of policing that would have been tolerated in the
First Level Civil Order Section, but it seemed to suit Akor-Neb
conditions. And he listened to a series of angry recriminations and
contradictory statements by different politicians, all of whom