manager was waiting;
he looked as though he were about to demand that Verkan Vall vacate
his suite. However, when he saw the arm of the President-General of
the Society of Assassins draped amicably over his guest's shoulder, he
came forward bowing and smiling.

"Larnorm, I want you to put five of your best Assassins to guarding
the approaches to the Lord Virzal's suite," Klarnood told him. "I'll
send five more from Assassins' Hall to replace them at their ordinary
duties. And I'll hold you responsible with your carnate existence for
the Lord Virzal's safety in this hotel. Understand?"

"Oh, yes, Honorable Assassin-President; you may trust me. The Lord
Virzal will be perfectly safe."

In Verkan Vall's suite, above, Klarnood sat down and got out his pipe,
filling it with tobacco lightly mixed with _zerfa_. To his surprise,
he saw his host light a plain tobacco cigarette.

"Don't you use _zerfa_?" he asked.

"Very little," Verkan Vall replied. "I grow it. If you'd see the bums
who hang around our drying sheds, on Venus, cadging rejected leaves
and smoking themselves into a stupor, you'd be frugal in using it,
too."

Klarnood nodded. "You know, most men would want a pipe of fifty
percent, or a straight _zerfa_ cigarette, after what you've been
through," he said.

"I'd need something like that, to deaden my conscience, if I had one
to deaden," Verkan Vall said. "As it is, I feel like a murderer of
babes. That overgrown fool, Marnark, handled his knife like a
cow-butcher. The young fellow couldn't handle a pistol at all. I
suppose the old fellow, Sirzob, was a fair shot, but dropping him
wasn't any great feat of arms, either."

Klarnood looked at him curiously for a moment. "You know," he said, at
length, "I believe you actually mean that. Well, until he met you,
Marnark of Bashad was rated as the best knife-fighter in Darsh. Sirzob
had ten dueling victories to his credit, and young Yirzol four." He
puffed slowly on his pipe. "I like you, Lord Virzal; a great Assassin
was lost when you decided to reincarnate as a Venusian land-owner. I'd
hate to see you discarnated without proper warning. I take it you're
ignorant of the intricacies of Terran politics?"

"To a large extent, yes."

"Well, do you know who those three men were?" When Verkan Vall shook
his head, Klarnood continued: "Marnark was the son and right-hand
associate of old Mirzark of Bashad, the Statisticalist Party leader.
Sirzob of Abo was their propaga