sh you'd come along with me," he said. "Some of us are up
in Kurt's suite; we'd all like to talk to you."

Somehow, he was acting as though he were making an arrest. That might
have been nothing but professional habit. Conn went up to Fawzi's
suite, and found Fawzi and Judge Ledue and Dolf Kellton and close to a
dozen others there.

"I'm glad you could come, Conn," the Judge greeted him. Now that the
defendant had arrived, the trial could begin. "I wish your father
could have gotten here. I asked him to come, but he had a prior
engagement. A meeting with some of the financial people here, about
some company he's interested in."

"That's right; Trisystem & Interstellar Spacelines."

"Interstellar!" Kurt Fawzi almost howled. "Great Ghu! Now it isn't
enough to go out to Koshchei; he wants to go clear out of the
Trisystem. That's what we wanted to talk about; all this nonsense you
and your father are in. Merlin's right here on Poictesme. It's right
at Force Command, and if your father hadn't robbed us of all our best
men, like Jerry Rivas and Anse Dawes, we'd have found it by now. I
don't think you and your father care a hoot if we ever find Merlin or
not!"

"Kurt, that's a dreadful thing to say," Dolf Kellton objected in a
shocked voice.

"It's a dreadful thing to have to say," Fawzi replied, "but you tell
me what Conn Maxwell or Rodney Maxwell are doing to help find it."

"Who showed you where Force Command was?" Klem Zareff asked.

Nobody could think of any good quick comeback to that.

Conn took advantage of the pause to ask, "Why do you want to find
Merlin?"

"Why do we ..." Fawzi spluttered indignantly. "If you don't know...."

"I know why I do. I want to see if you do. Do you?"

"Merlin would answer so many questions," Dolf Kellton told him gently.
"Questions I can't answer for myself."

"With Merlin, we could set up a legal code and a system of
jurisprudence that would give everybody absolute justice," Judge Ledue
said.

As if absolute justice wasn't the last thing anybody in his right
senses would want; a robot-judge would have the whole planet in jail
inside a month.

"We have a man who joined us after you went off to Koshchei, Conn,"
Franz Veltrin said. "A Mr. Carl Leibert. He's some kind of a
clergyman, from over Morven way. He says that Merlin could formulate
an entirely new religion, which would regenerate humanity."

"Well, I don't have any such lofty ideas," Fawzi said. "I just want
Mer