ganna were asleep on a big mound of silk cushions in one
corner, their glossy black heads close together and Zinganna's brown
arm around Dalla's white shoulder. Their faces were calmly beautiful
in repose, and they smiled slightly, as though they were wandering
through a happy dream. For a little while, Vall stood looking at them,
then he began whistling softly. On the third or fourth bar, Dalla
woke and sat up, waking Zinganna, and blinked at him perplexedly.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"About 1245," he told her.

"Ohhh! We just got to sleep," she said. "We're both bushed!"

"You had a hard time. Feel all right after your narco-hyp, Zinganna?"

"It wasn't so bad, and I had a nice sleep. And Dalla ... Dr. Hadron, I
mean--"

"Dalla," Vall's wife corrected. "Remember what I told you?"

"Dalla, then," Zinganna smiled. "Dalla gave me some hypno-treatment,
too. I don't feel so badly about Trod, any more."

"Well, look, Zinganna. We're going to have a man impersonate
Councilman Salgath on a telecast. The cosmeticians are making him over
now. Would you find it too painful to meet him, and talk to him?"

"No, I wouldn't mind. I can criticize the impersonation; remember, I
knew Trod very well. You know, I was his hostess, too. I met many of
the people with whom he was associated, and they know me. Would things
look more convincing if I appeared on the telecast with your man?"

"It certainly would; it would be a great help!" he told her
enthusiastically. "Maybe you girls ought to get up, now. The telecast
isn't till 1930, but there's a lot to be done getting ready."

Dalla yawned. "What I get, trying to be a cop," she said, then caught
the other girl's hands and rose, pulling her up. "Come on, Zinna; we
have to get to work!"

* * * * *

Vall rose from behind the reading-screen in Ranthar Jard's office,
stretching his arms over his head. For almost an hour, he had sat there
pushing buttons and twiddling selector and magnification-adjustment
knobs, looking at the pictures the Kholghoor-Nharkan cops had taken with
auto-return balls dropped over the spatial equivalent of Sohram. One set
of pictures, taken at two thousand feet, showed the central square of
the city. The effects of the Croutha sack were plainly visible; so were
the captives herded together under guard like cattle. By increasing
magnification, he looked at groups of the barbarian conquerors, big men
with blond or reddish