entered. The
honor-guard advanced in two columns; between them marched an unclad
and heavily armed native carrying an ornate spear with a three-foot
blade upright in front of him with all four hands. It was the
Konkrookan Spear of State; it represented the proxy-presence of King
Jaikark. Behind it stalked Gurgurk, the Konkrookan equivalent of Prime
Minister or Grand Vizier; he wore a gold helmet and a thing like a
string-vest made of gold wire, and carried a long sword with a
two-hand grip, a pair of Terran automatics built for a hand with six
four-knuckled fingers, and a pair of matched daggers. He was
considerably past the Ulleran prime of life--seventy or eighty, to
judge from the worn appearance of his opal teeth, the color of his
skin, and the predominantly reddish tint of his quartz-speckles. An
immature Ulleran would be a very light gray, white under the arms, and
his quartz-specks would run from white to pale yellow. The retinue of
nobles behind Gurgurk ran through the whole spectrum, from a
princeling who was almost oyster-gray to old Ghroghrank, the Keegarkan
Ambassador, who was even blacker and more red-speckled than Gurgurk.
All of them carried about as much ironmongery as the Prime
Minister--the pistols were all Terran, and the swords and daggers were
mostly made either on Terra or at the Terran-operated steel-works on
Volund.

Four slaves brought up the rear carrying an ornately inlaid box on
poles. When the spear-bearer reached the exact middle of the hall, he
halted and grounded his regalia-weapon with a thump. Gurgurk came up
and halted a couple of paces behind and to the left of the spear, and
all the other nobles drew up in two curved lines some ten paces to the
rear, with considerable pushing and jostling and a _sotto voce_
argument, with overtones of weapon-fingering, about precedence. All,
that is, but Ghroghrank and another noble, who came up and planted
themselves beside Gurgurk. Von Schlichten regarded the assemblage
sourly through his monocle. Maybe Sid Harrington _did_ look regal,
after all.

The Governor-General rose slowly and descended from the dais,
advancing to within ten paces of the Spear, von Schlichten and Blount
accompanying him. Out of the corner of his eye, von Schlichten watched
a couple of Kragan mercenaries with fifty-shot machine-rifles move
unobtrusively to positions from whence they could, if necessary, spray
the visitors with bullets without endangering the Terrans.

"