't even to be trusted with a sidearm, let alone five
companies of armed soldiers. Do you know what he told me this morning?"

"That somebody is training a Nidhog swamp-crawler to crawl up the
Octagon Tower and bite you at breakfast, I suppose. But hasn't that been
going on for quite a while, sir?"

"It was a gimmick in one of the cooking robots, but that's aside from
the question. He's finally named the master mind behind all these
nightmares of his, and who do you think it is? Yorn Travann!"

* * * * *

The Prime Minister's face grew graver than usual. Well, it was something
to look grave about; some of these days----

"Your Majesty, I couldn't possibly agree more about the general's mental
condition, but I really should say that, crazy or not, he is not alone
in his suspicions of Prince Travann. If sharing them makes me a lunatic,
too, so be it, but share them I do."

Paul felt his eyebrows lift in surprise. "That's quite too much and too
little, Prince Ganzay," he said.

"With your permission, I'll elaborate. Don't think that I suspect Prince
Travann of any childish pranks with elevators or viewscreens or
cooking-robots," the Prime Minister hastened to disclaim, "but I
definitely do suspect him of treasonous ambitions. I suppose Your
Majesty knows that he is the first Minister of Security in centuries who
has assumed personal control of both the planetary and municipal police,
instead of delegating his _ex officio_ powers.

"Your Majesty may not know, however, of some of the peculiar uses he has
been making of those authorities. Does Your Majesty know that he has
recruited the Security Guard up to at least ten times the strength
needed to meet any conceivable peace-maintenance problem on this planet,
and that he has been piling up huge quantities of heavy combat
equipment--guns up to 200-millimeter, heavy contragravity, even
gun-cutters and bomb-and-rocket boats? And does Your Majesty know that
most of this armament is massed within fifteen minutes' flight-time of
this Palace? Or that Prince Travann has at his disposal from two and a
half to three times, in men and firepower, the combined strength of the
Planetary Militia and the Imperial Army on this planet?"

"I know. It has my approval. He's trying to salvage some of the young
nonworkers through exposing them to military discipline. A good many of
them, I believe, have gone off-planet on their discharge from the SG and
hire