the Proconsul.

"Go ahead, Count Erskyll; drink it down. Medicinal," he was saying.
"Believe me you certainly need it."

Erskyll gulped it down. "I think I could use another, if you please," he
said, handing the glass back to Lanze. "And a cigarette." After he had
tasted his second drink and puffed on the cigarette, he said: "I was so
proud. I thought they were learning democracy."

"We don't, any of us, have too much to be proud about," Degbrend told
him. "They must have been planning and preparing this for a couple of
months, and we never caught a whisper of it."

That was correct. They had deluded Erskyll into thinking that they were
going to let the Masters vote themselves out of power and set up a
representative government. They had deluded the Masters into believing
that they were in favor of the _status quo_, and opposed to Erkyll's
democratization and socialization. There must be only a few of them in
the conspiracy. Chmidd and Hozhet and Zhannar and Khouzhik and Schferts
and the rest of the Citadel chief-slave clique. Among them, they
controlled all the armed force. The bickering and rivalries must have
been part of the camouflage. He supposed that a few of the upper army
commanders had been in on it, too.

A communication-screen began making noises. Somebody flipped the switch,
and Khreggor Chmidd appeared in it. Erskyll swore softly, and went to
face the screen-image of the elephantine ex-slave of the ex-Lord Master,
the late Rovard Javasan.

"Citizen Proconsul; why is our telecast station, which is vitally needed
to give information to the people, jammed off the air, and why are you
broadcasting, on our wavelength, advice to the criminals of the
ci-devant Masterly class to take refuge in your Proconsular Palace from
the just vengeance of the outraged victims of their century-long
exploitation?" he began. "This is a flagrant violation of the Imperial
Constitution; our Emperor will not be pleased at this unjustified
intervention in the affairs, and this interference with the planetary
authority, of the People's Commonwealth of Aditya!"

Obray of Erskyll must have realized, for the first time, that he was
still holding a highball glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
He flung both of them away.

"If the Imperial troops we are sending into the city to rescue women and
children in danger from your hoodlums meet with the least resistance,
you won't be in a position to find out what his Majesty