emen, let's go to my study."

Count Tammsan looked around, bewildered. "But I don't understand----" He
fell into step with Paul and the Minister of Security; a squad of
Security Guards fell in behind them. "I don't understand what's
happening," he complained.

An emperor about to have his throne yanked out from under him, and a
minister about to stage a _coup d'etat_, taking time out to settle a
trifling academic squabble. One thing he did understand, though, was
that the Ministry of Education was getting some very bad publicity at a
time when it could be least afforded. Prince Travann was telling him
about the hooligans' attack on the marching students, and that worried
him even more. Nonworking hooligans acted as voting-bloc bosses ordered;
voting-bloc bosses acted on orders from the political manipulators of
Cartels and pressure-groups, and action downward through the nonworkers
was usually accompanied by action upward through influences to which
ministers were sensitive.

* * * * *

There were a dozen Security Guards in black tunics, and as many
Household Thorans in red kilts, in the hall outside the study,
fraternizing amicably. They hurried apart and formed two ranks, and the
Thoran officer with them saluted.

Going into the study, he went to his desk; Count Tammsan lit a cigarette
and puffed nervously, and sat down as though he were afraid the chair
would collapse under him. Prince Travann sank into another chair and
relaxed, closing his eyes. There was a bit of wafer on the floor by
Paul's chair, dropped by the little dog that morning. He stooped and
picked it up, laying it on his desk, and sat looking at it until the
door screen flashed and buzzed. Then he pressed the release button.

Colonel Handrosan ushered the three University men in ahead of
him--Khane, with a florid, arrogant face that showed worry under the
arrogance; Dandrik, gray-haired and stoop-shouldered, looking irritated;
Faress, young, with a scrubby red mustache, looking bellicose. He
greeted them collectively and invited them to sit, and there was a brief
uncomfortable silence which everybody expected him to break.

"Well, gentlemen," he said, "we want to get the facts about this affair
in some kind of order. I wish you'd tell me, as briefly and as
completely as possible, what you know about it."

"There's the man who started it!" Khane declared, pointing at Faress.

"Professor Faress had nothing to do w