to whatever
position he assumed in the prosecution of his various assignments.

Evening, however, found him still with that smothered feeling of
self-pity about his fight with the fellows, and it persisted even after
he went to bed. By the Shade of Snyder, it wasn't fair to saddle a thing
like this on a mere kid.

It wasn't until after a couple of hours of tossing sleeplessness that he
remembered he hadn't turned on the sleep-instructor. Half-rebelliously,
he nevertheless got up and did so ... and that little act broke his
mood. He dropped asleep almost immediately after returning to bed.

At the end of the two weeks Hanlon felt he knew both the Simonidean
language and its customs well enough to start working. He went to the
bank and, deviously, to box 1044.

Sorting through a thick sheaf of envelopes he found one with his name on
it. He took it to one of the cubicles, whose door he locked from the
inside, setting up full coverage.

As he read there flashed through his mind the background of this other
planet's situation. From his knowledge of politico-history within the
Federation he knew there was an iron-clad agreement that each planet
could choose its own form of government. Most of them chose the
democratic form, but some had a type of fascistic state. One or two--the
most advanced--even had an anarchistic state, with a very minimum of
laws and governing.

Simonides had, about a century earlier, reverted to the empire
status--the only planet within the Federation to do so. It had
originally been colonized as a world-wide republic, but later had broken
up into five independent countries, as different sections became
populated more heavily with people of other national backgrounds than
Greek. These five countries had eventually been recombined, after a
spectacular coup, as an empire.

Then had come this belief of the Corps that something was brewing there
that would affect the peace of the Federation, and the failure of their
agents so far to find out about it.

Now SSM Hanlon's orders were to take ship to Simonides Four, and seek to
learn what he could about these guessed-at conditions as swiftly as
possible. If he gained any impressions of who or what group was behind
this movement, he was to attempt to join it and ferret out that secret
so it could be reported.

With such information in their possession, the Corps would know if it
was anything inimical to the peace and security of the Federation, and