gged away.

"And then, when Dr. Dandrik ordered you to drop this experiment, just
when it was becoming interesting, you refused?"

"Your Majesty, I couldn't stop, not then. But Dr. Dandrik ordered the
apparatus dismantled and scrapped, and I'm afraid I lost my head. Told
him I'd punch his silly old face in, for one thing."

"You admit that?" Chancellor Khane cried.

"I think you showed admirable self-restraint in not doing it. Did you
explain to Chancellor Khane the importance of this experiment?"

"I tried to, Your Majesty, but he simply wouldn't listen."

"But, Your Majesty!" Khane expostulated. "Professor Dandrik is head of
the department, and one of the foremost physicists of the Empire, and
this young man is only one of the junior assistant-professors. Isn't
even a full professor, and he got his degree from some school away
off-planet. University of Brannerton on Gimli."

"Were you a pupil of Professor Vann Evaratt?" Prince Travann asked
sharply.

"Why, yes, sir. I----"

"Ha, no wonder!" Dandrik crowed. "Your Majesty, that man's an
out-and-out charlatan! He was kicked out of the University here ten
years ago, and I'm surprised he could even get on the faculty of a
school like Brannerton, on a planet like Gimli."

"Why, you stupid old fool!" Faress yelled at him. "You aren't enough of
a physicist to oil robots in Vann Evaratt's lab!"

"There, Your Majesty," Khane said. "You see how much respect for
authority this hooligan has!"

On Aditya, such would be unthinkable; on Aditya, everybody respects
authority. Whether it's respectable or not.

Count Tammsan laughed, and he realized that he must have spoken aloud.
Nobody else seemed to have gotten the joke.

"Well, how about the riot, now?" he asked. "Who started that?"

"Colonel Handrosan made an investigation on the spot," Prince Travann
said. "May I suggest that we hear his report?"

"Yes indeed. Colonel?"

Handrosan rose and stood with his hands behind his back, looking fixedly
at the wall behind the desk.

[Illustration]

"Your Majesty, the students of Professor Faress' advanced subnuclear
physics class, postgraduate students, all of them, were told of
Professor Faress' dismissal by a faculty member who had taken over the
class this morning. They all got up and walked out in a body, and
gathered outdoors on the campus to discuss the matter. At the next class
break, they were joined by other science students, and they went into
the stadium, w