ask, we have Andray Dunnan here; he was leading us, but
now we've disarmed him and are holding him. If we turn him over to
you, will you let us go?"

"If you all come out unarmed, and bring Dunnan with you, I promise
you, the rest of you will be let outside this building and allowed
to go away unharmed."

"All right. We'll be coming out in a minute." The man raised his
voice. "It's agreed!" he called. "Bring him out."

There were fewer than two score of them. Some wore the uniforms of
high officers of the People's Watchmen or of People's Welfare Party
functionaries; a few wore the heavily braided short jackets of Space
Viking officers. Among them, they propelled a thin-faced man with a
pointed beard, and Trask had to look twice at him before he
recognized the face of Andray Dunnan. It looked more like the face
of Duke Angus of Wardshaven as he last remembered it. Dunnan looked
at him in incurious contempt.

"Your dotard king couldn't rule without Zaspar Makann, and Makann
couldn't rule without me, and neither can you," he said. "Shoot this
gang of turncoats, and I'll rule Marduk for you." He looked at Trask
again. "Who are you?" he demanded. "I don't know you."

Trask slipped the pistol from his holster, thumbing off the safety.

"I am Lucas Trask. You've heard that name before," he said. "Stand
away from behind him, you people."

"Oh, yes; the poor fool who thought he was going to marry Elaine
Karvall. Well, you won't, Lord Trask of Traskon. She loves me, not
you. She's waiting for me now, on Gram...."

Trask shot him through the head. Dunnan's eyes widened in momentary
incredulity; then his knees gave way, and he fell forward on his
face. Trask thumbed on the safety and holstered the pistol, and
looked at the body on the concrete.

It hadn't made the least difference. It had been like shooting a
snake, or one of the nasty scorpion-things that infested the old
buildings in Rivington. Just no more Andray Dunnan.

"Take that carrion and stuff it in a mass-energy converter," he
said. "And I don't want anybody to mention the name of Andray Dunnan
to me again."

He didn't look at them haul Dunnan's body away on a lifter-skid;
he watched the fifty-odd leaders of the overthrown misgovernment
of Marduk shamble away to freedom, guarded by Paytrik Morland's
riflemen. Now there was something to reproach himself for; he'd
committed a separate and distinct crime against Marduk by letting
each one of them live. Unless