wine
for her.

"He's still alive, Your Highness. The Crown Princess Melanie and I
... I'm sorry, Your Highness; Dowager Crown Princess ... have been
taking care of him, the best way we could. If you'll only come
quickly...."

Mikhyl VIII, Planetary King of Marduk, lay on a pallet of filthy
bedding on the floor of a narrow room behind a mass-energy converter
which disposed of the rubbish and sewage and generated power for
some of the fixed equipment on one of the middle floors of the east
wing of the palace. There was a bucket of water, and on a rough
wooden bench lay a cloth-wrapped bundle of food. A woman, haggard
and disheveled, wearing a suit of greasy mechanic's coveralls and
nothing else, squatted beside him. The Crown Princess Melanie, whom
Trask remembered as the charming and gracious hostess of Cragdale.
She tried to rise, and staggered.

"Prince Bentrik! And it's Prince Trask of Tanith!" she cried.
"Just hurry; get him out of here and to where he can be taken
care of. Please." Then she sat down again on the floor and fell
over, unconscious.

* * * * *

They couldn't get the story. The Princess Melanie had collapsed
completely. Her companion, another noblewoman of the court, could
only ramble disconnectedly. And the King merely lay, bathed and
fed in a clean bed, and looked up at them wonderingly, as though
nothing he saw or heard conveyed any meaning to him. The doctors
could do nothing.

"He has no mind, no more mind than a new-born baby. We can keep him
alive, I don't know how long. That's our professional duty. But it's
no kindness to His Majesty."

* * * * *

The little pockets of resistance in the Palace were wiped out,
through the next morning and afternoon. All but one, far
underground, below the main power plant. They tried sleep-gas; the
defenders had blowers and sent it back at them. They tried blasting;
there was a limit to what the fabric of the building would stand.
And nobody knew how long it would take to starve them out.

On the third day, a man crawled out, pushing a white shirt tied to
the barrel of a carbine ahead of him.

"Is Prince Lucas Trask of Tanith here?" he asked. "I won't speak to
anybody else."

They brought Trask quickly. All that was visible of the other man
was the carbine-barrel and the white shirt. When Trask called to
him, he raised his head above the rubble behind which he was hiding.

"Prince Tr