"Well, do you blame them? What would it have looked like to you, in
their place?"

"A _coup d'etat_. For that matter, wasn't that what it was? Why didn't
you tell me you were springing it?"

"I didn't spring it; it was sprung on me. I didn't know a thing about it
till Max Duklass buttonholed me down by the landing stage. I'd intended
fighting this proposal to partition Science and Technology, but this
riot blew up and scared Duklass and Tammsan and Guilfred and the rest of
them. They weren't too sure of their majority--that's why they had the
election postponed a couple of times--but they were sure that the riot
would turn some of the undecided Counselors against them. So they
offered to back me to take over Defense in exchange for my supporting
their proposal. It looked too good to pass up."

"Even at the price of wrecking Science and Technology?"

"It was wrecked, or left to rust into uselessness, long ago. The main
function of Technology has been to suppress anything that might threaten
this state of economic _rigor mortis_ that Duklass calls stability, and
the function of Science has been to let muttonheads like Khane and
Dandrik dominate the teaching of science. Well, Defense has its own
scientific and technical sections, and when we come to carving the bird,
Duklass and Tammsan are going to see a lot of slices going onto my
plate."

"And when it's all cut up, it will be discovered that there is no
provision for original research. So it will please My Majesty to
institute an Imperial Office of Scientific Research, independent of any
Ministry, and guess who'll be named to head it."

"Faress. And, by the way, we're all set on Khane, too. First Citizen
Yaggo is as delighted to have him as we are to get rid of him. Why don't
we get Vann Evaratt back, and give him the job?"

"Good. If he takes charge there at the opening of the next academic
year, in ten years we'll have a thousand young men, maybe ten times that
many, who won't be afraid of new things and new ideas. But the main
thing is that now you have Defense, and now the plan can really start
firing all jets."

"Yes." Yorn Travann got out his cigarettes and lit one. Paul glanced at
the robot, hoping that its feelings hadn't been hurt. "All these native
uprisings I've been blowing up out of inter-tribal knife fights, and all
these civil wars my people have been manufacturing; there'll be more of
them, and I'll start yelling my head off for an adequate S