y. Look here; you're not going to work against this, are you? You
won't advise these ci-devant Lords-Master to vote against it, when it
comes up?"

"Certainly not. I think your constitution--Khreggor Chmidd's and Tchall
Hozhet's, to be exact--will be nothing short of a political disaster,
but it will insure some political stability, which is all that matters
from the Imperial point of view. An Empire statesman must always guard
against sympathizing with local factions and interests, and I can think
of no planet on which I could be safer from any such temptation. If
these Lords-Master want to vote their throats cut, and the slaves want
to re-enslave themselves, they may all do so with my complete blessing."

If he had been at all given to dramatic gestures he would then have sent
for water and washed his hands.

* * * * *

Metaphorically, he did so at that moment; thereafter his interest in
Adityan affairs was that of a spectator at a boring and stupid show,
watching only because there is nothing else to watch, and wishing that
it had been possible to have returned to Odin on the _Irma_. The Prime
Minister, however, was entitled to a full and impartial report, which he
would scarcely get from Count Erskyll, on this new jewel in the Imperial
Crown. To be able to furnish that, he would have to remain until the
Midyear Feasts, when the Convocation would act on the new constitution.
Whether the constitution was adopted or rejected was, in itself,
unimportant; in either case, Aditya would have a government recognizable
as such by the Empire, which was already recognizing some fairly
unlikely-looking governments. In either case, too, Aditya would make
nobody on any other planet any trouble. It wouldn't have, at least for a
long time, even if it had been left unannexed, but no planet inhabited
by Terro-humans could be trusted to remain permanently peaceful and
isolated. There is a spark of aggressive ambition in every Terro-human
people, no matter how debased, which may smoulder for centuries or even
millennia and then burst, fanned by some random wind, into flame. To
shift the metaphor slightly, the Empire could afford to leave no
unwatched pots around to boil over unexpectedly.

Occasionally, he did warn young Erskyll of the dangers of overwork and
emotional over-involvement. Each time, the Proconsul would pour out some
tale of bickering and rivalry among the chief-freedmen of the
Managemen