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returned, it was too late. I accept the blame for the mismanagement of this affair. After tonight I will
request Your Excellency to accept my resignation, but first have I still your permission to sound the
general alarm? Without your authority I could not interfere with members of the royal family.
But Hinrik was swaying on his feet and could only stare at him vacantly.
Aratap said, Captain, you would do better to look to the health of your Director. I would
suggest you call his physician.
The general alarm! repeated the captain.
There will be no general alarm, said Aratap. Do you understand me? No general alarm! No
recapture of the prisoner! The incident is closed! Return your men to their quarters and ordinary duties
and look to your Director. Come, Major.
The Tyrannian major spoke tensely once they had left the mass of Palace Central behind them.
Aratap, he said, I presume you know what you re doing. I kept my mouth shut in there on the
basis of that presumption.
Thank you, Major. Aratap liked the night air of a planet full of green and growing things.
Tyrann was more beautiful in its way, but it was a terrible beauty of rocks and mountains. It was dry,
dry!
He went on: You cannot handle Hinrik, Major Andros. In your hands he would wilt and break.
He is useful, but requires gentle treatment if he is to remain so.
The major brushed that aside. I m not referring to that. Why not the general alarm? Don t you
want them?
Do you? Aratap stopped. Let us sit here for a moment, Andros. A bench on a pathway along
a lawn. What more beautiful, and what place is safer from spy beams? Why do you want the young man,
Major?
Why do I want any traitor and conspirator?
Why do you, indeed, if you only catch a few tools while leaving the source of the poison
untouched? Whom would you have? A cub, a silly girl, a senile idiot?
There was a faint splashing of an artificial waterfall nearby. A small one, but decorative. Now that
was a real wonder to Aratap. Imagine water, spilling out, running to waste, pouring 1ndefinitely down the
rocks and along the ground. He had never educated himself out of a certain indignation over it.
As it is, said the major, we have nothing.
We have a pattern. When the young man first arrived, we connected him with Hinrik, and that
bothered us, because Hinrik is--what he is. But it was the best we could do. Now we see it was not
Hinrik at all; that Hinrik was a misdirection. It was Hinrik s daughter and cousin he was after, and that
makes more sense.
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Why didn t he call us sooner? He waited for the middle of the night.
Because he is the tool of whoever is the first to reach him, and Gillbret, I am sure, suggested this
night meeting as a sign of great zeal on his part.
You mean we were called here on purpose? Towitness their escape? .
No, not for that reason. Ask yourself. Where do these people intend on going?
The major shrugged.-- Rhodia is big.
Yes, if it were the young Farrill alone who was concerned. But where on Rhodia would two
members of the royal family go unrecognized? Particularly the girl.
They would have to leave the planet, then? Yes, I agree.
And from where? They can reach the Palace Field in a fifteen-minute walk. Now do you see the
purpose of our being here?
The major said, Our ship?
Of course. A Tyrannian ship would seem ideal to them. Otherwise, they would have to choose
among freighters. Farrill has been educated on Earth, and, I m sure, can fly a cruiser.
Now there s a point. Why do we allow the nobility to send out their sons in all directions? What
business has a subject to know more about travel than will suffice him for local trade? We bring up
soldiers against us.
Nevertheless, said Aratap, with polite indifference, at the moment Farrill has a foreign
education, and let us take that into account objectively, without growing angry about it. The fact remains
that I am certain they have taken our cruiser.
I can t believe it.
You have your wrist caller. Make contact with the ship, if you can.
The major tried, futilely.
Aratap said, Try the Field Tower.
The major did so, and the small voice came out of the tiny receiver, in minute agitation: But,
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