were Franz Veltrin or Dolf Kellton or Judge Ledue. Tom Brangwyn
resigned as town marshal; Klem Zareff was too busy even to think of
Merlin; he had almost as many men under his command, and twice as much
contragravity, as he had had when the System States Alliance Army had
surrendered.

Conn flew to Litchfield, and found that the public works project had
come to a stop at noon of the day when Force Command was entered, and
that nothing had been done on it since. The cold vitrifier was still
standing in the middle of the Mall, and topside Litchfield was
littered in a dozen places with forsaken equipment and half-completed
paving. There was no one in Kurt Fawzi's office in the Airlines
Building, and the employment office was jammed with migratory workers
vainly seeking jobs.

He hunted up Morgan Gatworth, the lawyer.

"Can't some of you get things started again?" he wanted to know. "This
place is worse than it was before they started cleaning up."

"Yes, I know." Gatworth walked to an open window and looked down on
the littered Mall. "But everybody just dropped everything as soon as
you opened Force Command. Kurt Fawzi's not been back here since."

"Well, you're here. Lester Dawes and Lorenzo Menardes are here. Why
don't you just take over. Kurt Fawzi couldn't care less what you do;
he's forgotten he is mayor of Litchfield. He's forgotten there is a
Litchfield."

"Well, I don't like to just move into the mayor's office and take
over...."

From somewhere below, a submachine gun hammered. There were yells,
pistol shots, and the submachine gun hammered again, a couple of short
bursts.

"Some of the farm-tramps who can't get jobs, trying to steal something
to eat, I suppose," Conn commented. Gatworth was frowning
thoughtfully. He'd only need one more, very slight, push. "Why don't
you talk to Wade Lucas. He's got brains, and he's honest--nobody but
an honest man would have made himself as unpopular as Lucas has. If
you pretend to be disillusioned with this Merlin business it might
help convince him."

"He was blaming you and your father for what's been going on here in
the last two weeks. Yes. He'd help get things straightened out."

At home, he found his mother simply dazed. She was happy to see him,
and solicitous about his and his father's health. It seemed at times,
though, as if he were somebody she had never met before. Events had
gotten so far beyond her that she wasn't even trying to catch up.

Flora,