of mercenaries thrown out of employment and living by
pillage. Religious fanatics following self-anointed prophets."

"You think we don't have plenty of Neobarbarian material here on
Gram?" Trask demanded. "If you do, take a look around."

Glaspyth, somebody said.

"That collection of over-ripe gallows-fruit Andray Dunnan's
recruited," Rathmore mentioned.

Alex Gorram was grumbling that his shipyard was full of them;
agitators stirring up trouble, trying to organize a strike to
get rid of the robots.

"Yes," Harkaman pounced on that last. "I know of at least forty
instances, on a dozen and a half planets, in the last eight
centuries, of anti-technological movements. They had them on Terra,
back as far as the Second Century Pre-Atomic. And after Venus
seceded from the First Federation, before the Second Federation
was organized."

"You're interested in history?" Rathmore asked.

"A hobby. All spacemen have hobbies. There's very little work
aboard ship in hyperspace; boredom is the worst enemy. My
guns-and-missiles officer, Vann Larch, is a painter. Most of his
work was lost with the _Corisande_ on Durendal, but he kept us from
starving a few times on Flamberge by painting pictures and selling
them. My hyperspatial astrogator, Guatt Kirbey, composes music; he
tries to express the mathematics of hyperspatial theory in musical
terms. I don't care much for it, myself," he admitted. "I study
history. You know, it's odd; practically everything that's happened
on any of the inhabited planets happened on Terra before the first
spaceship."

The garden immediately around them was quiet, now; everybody was
over by the landing-stage escalators. Harkaman would have said more,
but at that moment he saw half a dozen of Sesar Karvall's uniformed
guardsmen run past. They were helmeted and in bullet-proofs; one of
them had an auto-rifle, and the rest carried knobbed plastic
truncheons. The Space Viking set down his drink.

"Let's go," he said. "Our host is calling up his troops; I think
the guests ought to find battle-stations, too."

III

The gaily-dressed crowd formed a semicircle facing the landing-stage
escalators; everybody was staring in embarrassed curiosity, those
behind craning over the shoulders of those in front. The ladies had
drawn up their shawls in frigid formality; many had even covered
their heads. There were four news-service cars hovering above;
whatever was going on was getting a planetwide scre