e action in
others rather than himself, and his face showed it. His was a precision
mind, capable of fast, accurate computations, and his eyes betrayed the
fact, but the rest of his face looked, if anything, rather like that of
a gentle, persuasive schoolteacher--the type whom children love and
parents admire and both obey.

Nor was he a retired colonel of the Imperial bodyguard, except on paper.
According to the official records, he had been retired for medical
reasons--the missing left hand. In reality, his position in the Imperium
was a great deal higher than that of an ordinary colonel, and he was
still in the active service of the Emperor. It was a secret known only
to a comparative few, and one that was carefully guarded.

He was a fairly tall man, as an Imperial Guardsman had to be, with a
finely-shaped head and dark hair that was shot through with a single
streak of gray from an old burn wound. In an officer's uniform, he
looked impressive, but in civilian dress he looked like a competent
businessman.

He held the newsfac in his prosthetic left hand, which was
indistinguishable in appearance and in ordinary usage from the flesh,
bone, and blood that it had replaced. Indeed, the right hand, with its
stiff little finger, often appeared to be more useless than the left.
The hand, holding the glass of rye-and-ginger, gave an impression of
over-daintiness because of that stiff digit.

Lord Sorban paid little attention to the other customers in the bar;
customers of the Green Room of the Royal Hotel weren't the noisy kind,
anyway. He kept his attention on the newsfac for the most part; only a
small amount of awareness was reserved for the approach of the man he
was waiting for.

The banner line on the newsfac said:

BAIRNVELL OCCUPIED
BY IMPERIAL FORCES

He read through the article hurriedly, absorbing what facts he didn't
know, and then flipped over to the editorial page. If he knew the
_Globe_, there would sure as Space be an editorial.

There was.

At 0231 Greenwich Earth Time, 3/37/229, the forces of the Imperial
Government occupied the planet Bairnvell. (See article, Page One.)
The ships of the Imperial Space Force landed, purportedly at the
request of Obar Del Pargon, rebel leader of the anti-Presidential
forces. That such an action should be condoned by the Imperial File
is astounding enough; that it should be ordered by the Prime
Portfolio himself is almost unbe