I'll bet his mind's a lot freer from
that compulsion now, and perhaps he can remember more of what Bohr
sealed away from his conscious memory."

Hawarden nodded. "That's a good bet. I'll arrange it."

Two hours later the emperor was free to receive them, and the four were
soon closeted in his study.

"It's a strange, weird feeling, gentlemen," he said when they had
explained what they wanted. "It's almost like trying to read some other
person's mind. I've felt that Bohr's influence was receding, and I've
been trying to see what more I could find."

He sat silent for a moment, then said slowly, almost in a sing-song
voice as though reading from a printed page, "I knew he was building
some ships on Algon, but I did not know they were warships. He told me
they were a new type with an entirely new propulsive principle that one
of our scientists had worked out."

"There's always that possibility, of course," Newton said.

"Why did he say they were building them elsewhere than on this planet?"
Hawarden asked.

The emperor frowned in concentration, then a peculiar look came over his
features. "That's strange," he marvelled. "You would think I would have
been sure to ask that, but I cannot find any memory of ever having done
so."

"Algon had most of the natural resources for the building of ships,"
Hanlon ruminated aloud. "There were the mines, the forests, and slave
labor to cut down expenses. It was mostly engineers, scientists and
special technicians who were there, overseeing."

"I cannot find in my mind the names of any others who might have been in
the conspiracy with Bohr," the emperor answered another question. "He
brought only one man to see me, with the request that I present him a
decoration. It was the scientist who devised the new drive, he said. A
Professor Panek, I believe ..."

"Panek?" Hanlon interrupted. "A heavy-set, ruddy-faced, red-headed man?"

"Yes, that about describes him."

"But Panek was only one of his gunmen," the young SS man was perplexed.
"He didn't have brains enough to invent an excuse."

"I wonder, then, what Bohr had in mind to bring such a man here like
that?" Hawarden frowned.

"Maybe a trick to help throw His Majesty off guard," Newton suggested.

"Or else just a sop to Panek's vanity, to tie him closer to Bohr,"
Hanlon said. "A thing like that would have tickled Panek."

"We'll have him rounded up, then."

"No need, Sire," Hanlon explained. "He was one of those men wh