en showing. The
Karvall guardsmen were trying to get through; their sergeant was
saying, over and over, "Please, ladies and gentlemen; your pardon,
noble sir," and getting nowhere.

Otto Harkaman swore disgustedly and shoved the sergeant aside.
"Make way, here!" he bellowed. "Let these guards pass." With that,
he almost hurled a gaily-dressed gentleman aside on either hand;
they both turned to glare angrily, then got hastily out of his way.
Meditating briefly on the uses of bad manners in an emergency, Trask
followed, with the others; the big Space Viking plowed to the front,
where Sesar Karvall and Rovard Grauffis and several others were standing.

Facing them, four men in black cloaks stood with their backs to
the escalators. Two were commonfolk retainers; hired gunmen, to be
precise. They were at pains to keep their hands plainly in sight,
and seemed to be wishing themselves elsewhere. The man in front wore
a diamond sunburst jewel on his beret, and his cloak was lined with
pale blue silk. His thin, pointed face was deeply lined about the
mouth and penciled with a thin black mustache. His eyes showed
white all around the irises, and now and then his mouth would twitch
in an involuntary grimace. Andray Dunnan; Trask wondered briefly how
soon he would have to look at him from twenty-five meters over the
sights of a pistol. The face of the slightly taller man who stood at
his shoulder was paper-white, expressionless, with a black beard.
His name was Nevil Ormm, nobody was quite sure whence he had come,
and he was Dunnan's henchman and constant companion.

"You lie!" Dunnan was shouting. "You lie damnably, in your stinking
teeth, all of you! You've intercepted every message she's tried to
send me."

"My daughter has sent you no messages, Lord Dunnan," Sesar Karvall
said, with forced patience. "None but the one I just gave you, that
she wants nothing whatever to do with you."

"You think I believe that? You're holding her a prisoner; Satan
only knows how you've been torturing her to force her into this
abominable marriage--"

There was a stir among the bystanders; that was more than
well-mannered restraint could stand. Out of the murmur of
incredulous voices, one woman's was quite audible:

"Well, really! He actually _is_ crazy!"

Dunnan, like everybody else, heard it. "Crazy, am I?" he blazed.
"Because I can see through this hypocritical sham? Here's Lucas
Trask, he wants an interest in Karvall mills, and here