him."
"I know it, Your Majesty. To tell the truth, it was he who organizedthis march. Thought they'd be better employed coming here to petitionyou than milling around the University getting into further mischief."
The other officer also returned, bringing a portable viewscreen with himon a contragravity-lifter. By this time, the Bench of Counselors and thethree off-planet guests had become anxious and left the luncheonpavilion in a body. The Counselors were looking about uneasily,noticing the black uniformed Security Guards who had left the troopcarrier and were taking position by squads all around the emperor. FirstCitizen Yaggo, and King Ranulf and Lord Koreff, also seemed uneasy. Theywere avoiding the proximity of Paul as though he had the green death.
The viewscreen came on, and in it the city, as seen from an aircar attwo thousand feet, spread out with the Palace visible in the distance,the golden pile of the Octagon Tower jutting up from it. The carcarrying the pickup was behind the procession, which was moving towardthe Palace along one of the broad skyways, with Gendarmes and SecurityGuards leading, following and flanking. There were a few Imperial andplanetary and school flags, but none of the quantity-made banners andplacards which always betray a planned demonstration.
Prince Ganzay had been gone for some time, now. When he returned, hedrew Paul aside.
"Your Majesty," he whispered softly, "I tried to summon Army troops, butit'll be hours before any can get here. And the Militia can't bemobilized in anything less than a day. There are only five thousand ArmyRegulars on Odin, now, anyhow."
And half of them officers and noncoms of skeleton regiments. Like theNavy, the Army had been scattered all over the Empire--on Behemoth andAmida and Xipetotec and Astarte and Jotunnheim--in response to calls forsupport from Security.
"Let's have a look at this rioting, Prince Travann," one of the lessdecrepit Counselors, a retired general, said. "I want to see how yourpeople are handling it."
The officers who had come with Prince Travann consulted briefly, andthen got another pickup on the screen. This must have been a regularpublic pickup, on the front of a tall building. It was a couple of milesfarther away; the Palace was visible only as a tiny glint from theOctagon Tower, on the skyline. Half a dozen Security aircars weredarting about, two of them chasing a battered civilian vehicle andfiring at it. On rooftops and terraces and skyways, little clumps ofSecurity Guards were skirmishing, dodging from cover to cover, andsometimes individuals or groups in civilian clothes fired back at them.There was a surprising absence of casualties.
"Your Majesty!" the old general hissed in a scandalized whisper. "That'snothing but a big fake! Look, they're all firing blanks! The rifleshardly kick at all, and there's too much smoke for propellant-powder."
"I noticed that." This riot must have been carefully prepared, long inadvance. Yet the student riot seemed to have been entirely spontaneous.That puzzled him; he wished he knew just what Yorn Travann was up to."Just keep quiet about it," he advised.
* * * * *
More aircars were arriving, big and luxurious, emblazoned with the armsof some of the most distinguished families in Asgard. One of the firstto let down bore the device of Duklass, and from it the Minister ofEconomics, the Minister of Education, and a couple of other Ministers,alighted. Count Duklass went at once to Prince Travann, drawing him awayfrom King Ranulf and Lord Koreff and talking to him rapidly andearnestly. Count Tammsan approached at a swift half-run.
"Save Your Majesty!" he greeted, breathlessly. "What's going on, sir? Weheard something about some petty brawl at the University, that PrinceGanzay had become alarmed about, but now there seems to be fighting allover the city. I never saw anything like it; on the way here we had togo up to ten thousand feet to get over a battle, and there's a vastcrowd on the Avenue of the Arts, and----" He took in the SecurityGuards. "Your Majesty, just what _is_ going on?"
"Great and frightening changes." Count Tammsan started; he must havebeen to a psi-medium, too. "But I think the Empire is going to survivethem. There may even be a few improvements, before things are done."
A blue-uniformed Gendarme officer approached Prince Travann, drawing himaway from Count Duklass and speaking briefly to him. The Minister ofSecurity nodded, then turned back to the Minister of Economics. Theytalked for a few moments longer, then clasped hands, and Travann leftDuklass with his face wreathed in smiles. The Gendarme officeraccompanied him as he approached.
"Your Majesty, this is Colonel Handrosan, the officer who handled theaffair at the University."
"And a very good piece of work, colonel." He shook hands with him."Don't be surprised if it's remembered next Honors Day. Did you bringKhane and the two professors?"
"They're down on the lower landing-stage, Your Majesty. We're delayingthe students, to give Your Majesty time to talk to them."
"We'll see them now. My study will do." The officer saluted and wentaway. He turned to Count Tammsan. "That's why I asked Prince Ganzay toinvite you here. This thing's become too public to be ignored; some sortof action will have to be taken. I'm going to talk to the students; Iwant to find out just what happened before I commit myself to anything.Well, gentlemen, let's go to my study."
Count Tammsan looked around, bewildered. "But I don't understand----" Hefell into step with Paul and the Minister of Security; a squad ofSecurity Guards fell in behind them. "I don't understand what'shappening," he complained.
An emperor about to have his throne yanked out from under him, and aminister about to stage a _coup d'etat_, taking time out to settle atrifling academic squabble. One thing he did understand, though, wasthat the Ministry of Education was getting some very bad publicity at atime when it could be least afforded. Prince Travann was telling himabout the hooligans' attack on the marching students, and that worriedhim even more. Nonworking hooligans acted as voting-bloc bosses ordered;voting-bloc bosses acted on orders from the political manipulators ofCartels and pressure-groups, and action downward through the nonworkerswas usually accompanied by action upward through influences to whichministers were sensitive.
* * * * *
There were a dozen Security Guards in black tunics, and as manyHousehold Thorans in red kilts, in the hall outside the study,fraternizing amicably. They hurried apart and formed two ranks, and theThoran officer with them saluted.
Going into the study, he went to his desk; Count Tammsan lit a cigaretteand puffed nervously, and sat down as though he were afraid the chairwould collapse under him. Prince Travann sank into another chair andrelaxed, closing his eyes. There was a bit of wafer on the floor byPaul's chair, dropped by the little dog that morning. He stooped andpicked it up, laying it on his desk, and sat looking at it until thedoor screen flashed and buzzed. Then he pressed the release button.
Colonel Handrosan ushered the three University men in ahead ofhim--Khane, with a florid, arrogant face that showed worry under thearrogance; Dandrik, gray-haired and stoop-shouldered, looking irritated;Faress, young, with a scrubby red mustache, looking bellicose. Hegreeted them collectively and invited them to sit, and there was a briefuncomfortable silence which everybody expected him to break.
"Well, gentlemen," he said, "we want to get the facts about this affairin some kind of order. I wish you'd tell me, as briefly and ascompletely 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 with it," Colonel Handrosan statedflatly. "He and his wife were in their apartment, packing to move out,when it started. Somebody called him and told him about the fighting atthe stadium, and he went there at once to talk his students intodispersing. By that time, the situation was completely out of hand; hecould do nothing with the students.
"Well, I think we ought to find out, first of all, why Professor Faresswas dismissed," Prince Travann said. "It will take a good deal toconvince me that any teacher able to inspire such loyalty in hisstudents is a bad teacher, or deserves dismissa
l."
"As I understand," Paul said, "the dismissal was the result of adisagreement between Professor Faress and Professor Dandrik about anexperiment on which they were working. I believe, an experiment to fixmore exactly the velocity of accelerated subnucleonic particles. Betamicropositos, wasn't it, Chancellor Khane?"
Khane looked at him in surprise. "Your Majesty, I know nothing aboutthat. Professor Dandrik is head of the physics department; he came tome, about six months ago, and told me that in his opinion thisexperiment was desirable. I simply deferred to his judgment andauthorized it."
"Your Majesty has just stated the purpose of the experiment,"