t present
represented by Commodore Vann Shatrak and a seven ship battle-line unit,
and two thousand Imperial Landing-Troops.

When the locals had been properly convinced--with as little bloodshed as
necessary, but always beyond any dispute--an Imperial Proconsul, in this
case Obray, Count Erskyll, would be installed. He would by no means
govern the planet. The Imperial Constitution was definite on that point;
every planetary government should be sovereign as to intraplanetary
affairs. The Proconsul, within certain narrow and entirely inelastic
limits, would merely govern the government.

Unfortunately, Obray, Count Erskyll, appeared not to understand this
completely. It was his impression that he was a torch-bearer of Imperial
civilization, or something equally picturesque and metaphorical. As he
conceived it, it was the duty of the Empire, as represented by himself,
to make over backward planets like Aditya in the image of Odin or Marduk
or Osiris or Baldur or, preferably, his own home world of Aton.

This was Obray of Erskyll's first proconsular appointment, it was due to
family influence, and it was a mistake. Mistakes, of course, were
inevitable in anything as large and complex as the Galactic Empire, and
any institution guided by men was subject to one kind of influence or
another, family influence being no worse than any other kind. In this
case, the ultra-conservative Erskylls of Aton, from old Errol, Duke of
Yorvoy, down, had become alarmed at the political radicalism of young
Obray, and had, on his graduation from the University of Nefertiti,
persuaded the Prime Minister to appoint him to a Proconsulate as far
from Aton as possible, where he would not embarrass them. Just at that
time, more important matters having been gotten out of the way, Aditya
had come up for annexation, and Obray of Erskyll had been named
Proconsul.

That had been the mistake. He should have been sent to some planet which
had been under Imperial rule for some time, where the Proconsulate ran
itself in a well-worn groove, and where he could at leisure learn the
procedures and unlearn some of the unrealisms absorbed at the University
from professors too well insulated from the realities of politics.

* * * * *

There was a stir among the guards; helmet-visors were being snapped
down; feet scuffed. They stiffened to attention, the great doors at the
other end of the grand salon slid open, and the guards