ending them up?"

"Landing-craft to _Isobel_; _Isobel_ will bring them the rest of the
way."

He looked at his watch. "Well, don't be in too much of a rush to get
them here, Colonel. We don't want them till after lunch. Delay them on
_Isobel_; the skipper can see that they have their own lunch aboard. And
entertain them with some educational films. Something to convince them
that there is slightly more to the Empire than one ship-of-the-line, two
cruisers and four destroyers."

Count Erskyll was dissatisfied about that, too. He wanted to see the
delegation at once and make arrangements to talk to their superiors.
Count Erskyll, among other things, was zealous, and of this he
disapproved. Zealous statesmen perhaps did more mischief than anything
in the Galaxy--with the possible exception of procrastinating soldiers.
That could indicate the fundamental difference between statecraft and
war. He'd have to play with that idea a little.

* * * * *

An Empire ship-of-the-line was almost a mile in diameter. It was more
than a battle-craft; it also had political functions. The grand salon,
on the outer zone where the curvature of the floors was less
disconcerting, was as magnificent as any but a few of the rooms of the
Imperial Palace at Asgard on Odin, the floor richly carpeted and the
walls alternating mirrors and paintings. The movable furniture varied
according to occasion; at present, it consisted of the bare desk at
which they sat, the three chairs they occupied, and the three
secretary-robots, their rectangular black casts blazened with the Sun
and Cogwheel of the Empire. It faced the door, at the far end of the
room; on either side, a rank of spacemen, in dress uniform and under
arms, stood.

In principle, annexing a planet to the Empire was simplicity itself, but
like so many things simple in principle, it was apt to be complicated in
practice, and to this, he suspected, the present instance would be no
exception.

In principle, one simply informed the planetary government that it was
now subject to the sovereignty of his Imperial Majesty, the Galactic
Emperor. This information was always conveyed by a Ministerial
Secretary, directly under the Prime Minister and only one more step down
from the Emperor, in the present instance Jurgen, Prince Trevannion. To
make sure that the announcement carried conviction, the presumedly glad
tidings were accompanied by the Imperial Space Navy, a