Marduk to rapine and plunder. The leak evidently did not come
from Cragdale, for it was generally believed that Trask was still at
the Royal Palace in Malverton. At least, that was where the
Makannists were demonstrating against him.

He watched such a demonstration by screen; the pickup was evidently
on one of the landing stages of the palace, overlooking the wide
parks surrounding it. They were packed almost solid with people,
surging forward toward the thin cordon of police. The front of the
mob looked like a checkerboard--a block in civilian dress, then a
block in the curiously effeminate-looking uniforms of Zaspar
Makann's People's Watchmen, then more in ordinary garb, and more
People's Watchmen. Over the heads of the crowds, at intervals,
floated small contragravity lifters on which were mounted the
amplifiers that were bellowing:

"SPACE VI-KING--GO HOME! SPACE VI-KING--GO HOME!"

The police stood motionless, at parade rest; the mob surged closer.
When they were fifty yards away, the blocks of People's Watchmen ran
forward, then spread out until they formed a line six deep across
the entire front; other blocks, from the rear, pushed the ordinary
demonstrators aside and took their place. Hating them more every
second, Trask grudged approval of a smart and disciplined maneuver.
How long, he wondered, had they been drilling in that sort of
tactics? Without stopping, they continued their advance on the
police, who had now shifted their stance.

"SPACE VI-KING--GO HOME! SPACE VI-KING--GO HOME!"

"Fire!" he heard himself yelling. "Don't let them get any closer,
fire now!"

They had nothing to fire with; they had only truncheons, no better
weapons than the knobbed swagger-sticks of the People's Watchmen.
They simply disappeared, after a brief flurry of blows, and the
Makann storm-troopers continued their advance.

And that was that. The gates of the Palace were shut; the mob,
behind a front of Makann People's Watchmen, surged up to them and
stopped. The loud-speakers bellowed on, reiterating their four-word
chant.

"Those police were murdered," he said. "They were murdered by the
man who ordered them out there unarmed."

"That would be Count Naydnayr, the Minister of Security," somebody said.

"Then he's the one you want to hang for it."

"What else would you have done?" Crown Prince Edvard challenged.

"Put up about fifty combat cars. Drawn a deadline, and opened
machine-gun fire as soon as the mob cros