publican government, sir; a very complicated setup.
Really, it's a junk heap. When anything goes badly, they always build
something new into the government, but they never abolish anything. They
have a president, a premier, and an executive cabinet, and a tricameral
legislature, and two complete and distinct judiciaries. The premier is
always the presidential candidate getting the next highest number of
votes. In the present instance, the president, who controls the
planetary militia, is accusing the premier, who controls the police, of
fraud in the election of the middle house of the legislature. Each is
supported by the judiciary he controls. Practically every citizen
belongs either to the militia or the police auxiliaries. I am looking
forward to further reports from Amaterasu," he added dryly.

"I daresay they'll be interesting. Send them to me in full, and red-star
them, if you please, Prince Travann."

He went back to the reports. The Ministry of Science and Technology had
sent up a lengthy one. The only trouble with it was that everything
reported was duplication of work that had been done centuries before.
Well, no. A Dr. Dandrik, of the physics department of the Imperial
University here in Asgard announced that a definite limit of accuracy in
measuring the velocity of accelerated subnucleonic particles had been
established--16.067543333--times light-speed. That seemed to be typical;
the frontiers of science, now, were all decimal points. The Ministry of
Education had a little to offer; historical scholarship was still
active, at least. He was reading about a new trove of source-material
that had come to light on Uller, from the Sixth Century Atomic Era, when
the door screen buzzed and flashed.

* * * * *

He lit it, and his son Rodrik appeared in it, with Snooks, the little
red hound, squirming excitedly in the Crown Prince's arms. The dog began
barking at once, and the boy called through the phone:

"Good morning, father; are you busy?"

"Oh, not at all." He pressed the release button. "Come on in."

Immediately, the little hound leaped out of the princely arms and came
dashing into the study and around the desk, jumping onto his lap. The
boy followed more slowly, sitting down in the deskside chair and drawing
his foot up under him. Paul greeted Snooks first--people can wait, but
for little dogs everything has to be right now--and rummaged in a drawer
until he found some w