"You will hear it next February. Also January, March, and all the other months. Truth cannot be too often repeated." I glanced back at the gatemaster and added, "I'm sorry but I'll have to go now-or I'll miss the tick." I turned and went through the gate, with Penny after me.

            We climbed into the little lead-armored field ear and the door sighed shut. The car was automatized, so I did not have to play up for a driver; I threw myself down and relaxed. "Whew!"

            "I thought you did beautifully," Penny said seriously.

            "I had a bad moment when he spotted the speech I was cribbing."

            "You got away with it. It was an inspiration. You-you sounded just like him."

            "Was there anybody there I should have called by name?"

            "Not really. One or two maybe, but they wouldn't expect it when you were so rushed."

            "I was caught in a squeeze. That fiddlin' gatemaster and his passports. Penny, I should think that you would carry them rather than Dak."

            "Dak doesn't carry them. We all carry our own." She reached into her bag, pulled out a little book. "I had mine-but I did not dare admit it."

            "Eh?"

            "He had his on him when they got him. We haven't dared ask for a replacement-not at this time."

            I was suddenly very weary.

            Having no instructions from Dak or Rog, I stayed in character during the shuttle trip up and on entering the Tom Paine. It wasn't difficult; I simply went straight to the owner's cabin and spent long, miserable hours in free fall, biting my nails and wondering what was happening down on the surface. With the aid of antinausea pills I finally managed to float off into fitful sleep-which was a mistake, for I had a series of no-pants nightmares, with reporters pointing at me and cops touching me on the shoulder and Martians aiming their wands at me. They all knew I was phony and were simply arguing over who had the privilege of taking me apart and putting me down the oubliette.

            I was awakened by the hooting of the acceleration alarm. Dak's vibrant baritone was booming, "First and last red warning! One third gee! One minute!" I hastily pulled myself over to my bunk and held on. I felt lots better when it hit; one third gravity is not much, about the same as Mars' surface I think, but it is enough to steady the stomach and make the floor a real floor.

            About five minutes later Dak knocked and let himself in as I was going to the door. "Howdy, Chief."

            "Hello, Dak. I'm certainly glad to see you back."

            "Not as glad as I am to be back," he said wearily. He eyed my bunk. "Mind if I spread out there?"

            "Help yourself."

            He did so and sighed. "Cripes, am I pooped! I could sleep for a week. . . I think I wifi."

            "Let's both of us. Uh ... You got him aboard?"

            "Yes. What a gymkhana!"

            "I suppose so. Still, it must be easier to do a job like that in a small, informal port like this than it was to pull the stunts you rigged at Jeff erson."

            "Huh? No, it's much harder here."

            "Eh?"

            "Obviously. Here everybody knows everybody-and people will talk." Dak smiled wryly. "We brought him aboard as a case of frozen canal shrimp. Had to pay export duty, too."

            "Dak, how is he?"

            "Well . . ." Dak frowned. "Doc Capek says that he will make a complete recovery-that it is just a matter of time." He added explosively, "If I could lay my hands on those rats! It would make you break down and bawl to see what they did to him-and yet we have to let them get away with it cold-for his sake."

            Dak was fairly close to bawling himself. I said gently, "I gathered from Penny that they had roughed him up quite a lot. How badly is he hurt?"

            "Huh? You must have misunderstood Penny. Aside from being filthy-dirty and needing a shave he was not hurt physically at all."

            I looked stupid. "I thought they beat him up. Something about like working him over with a baseball bat."

            "I would rather they had! Who cares about a few broken bones? No, no, it was what they did to his brain."

            "Oh . . ." I felt ill. "Brainwash?"

            "Yes. Yes and no. They couldn't have been trying to make him talk because he didn't have any secrets that were of any possible political importance. He always operated out in the open and everybody knows it. They must have been using it simply to keep him under control, keep him from trying to escape."

            He went on, "Doc says that he thinks they must have been using the minimum daily dose, just enough to keep him docile, until just before they turned him loose. Then they shot him with a load that would turn an elephant into a gibbering idiot. The front lobes of his brain must be soaked like a bath sponge."

            I felt so ill that I was glad I had not eaten. I had once read up on the subject; I hate it so much that it fascinates me. To my mind there is something immoral and degrading in an absolute cosmic sense in tampering with a man's personality. Murder is a clean crime in comparison, a mere peccadillo. "Brainwash" is a term that comes down to us from the Communist movement of the Late Dark Ages; it was first applied to breaking a man's will and altering his personality by physical indignities and subtle torture. But that might take months; later they found a "better" way, one which would turn a man into a babbling slave in seconds-simply inject any one of several cocaine derivatives into his frontal brain lobes.

            The ifithy practice had first been developed for a legitimate purpose, to quiet disturbed patients and make them accessible to psychotherapy. As such, it was a humane advance, for it was used instead of lobotomy-"lobotomy" is a term almost as obsolete as "chastity girdle" but it means stirring a man's brain with a knife in such a fashion as to destroy his personality without killing him. Yes, they really used to do that-just as they used to beat them to "drive the devils out."

            The Communists developed the new brainwash-by-drugs to an efficient technique, then when there were no more Communists, the Bands of Brothers polished it up still further until they could dose a man so lightly that he was simply receptive to leadership-. or load him until he was a mindless mass of protoplasm-all in the sweet name of brotherhood. After all, you can't have "brotherhood" if a man is stubborn enough to want to keep his own secrets, can you? And what better way is there to be sure that he is not holding out on you than to poke a needle past his eyeball and slip a shot of babble juice into his brain? "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs." The sophistries of villains-bah!

            Of course, it has been illegal for a long, long time now, except for therapy, with the express consent of a court. But criminals use it and cops are sometimes not lily white, for it does make a prisoner talk and it does not leave any marks at all. The victim can even be told to forget that it has been done.

            I knew most of this at the time Dak told me what had been done to Bonforte and the rest I cribbed out of the ship's Encyclopedia Batavia. See the article on "Psychic Integration" and the one on "Torture."

            I shook my head and tried to put the nightmares out of my mind. "But he's going to recover?"

            "Doc says that the drug does not alter the brain structure; it just paralyzes it. He says that eventually the blood stream picks up and carries away all of the dope; it reaches the kidneys and passes out of the body. But it takes time." Dak looked up at me. "Chief?"

            "Eh? About time to knock off that 'Chief' stuff, isn't it? He's back."

            "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Would it be too much trouble to you to keep up the impersonation just a little while longer?"

            "But why? There's nobody here but just us chickens."

            "That's not quite true. Lorenzo, we've managed to keep this secret awfully tight. There's me, there's you." He ticked it off on his fingers. "There's Doc and Rog and Bill. And Penny, of course. There's a man by the name of Langston back Earthside whom you've never met. I think Jimmie Washington suspects but he wouldn't tell his own mother the right time of day. We don't know how many took part in the kidnaping, but not many, you can be sure. In any case, they don't dare talk-and the joke of it is they no longer could prove that he had ever been missing even if they wanted to. But my point is this: here in the Tommie we've got all the crew and all the idlers not in on it. Old son, how about staying with it and letting yourself be seen each day by crewmen and by Jimmie Washington's girl and such-while he gets well? Huh?"

            "Mmm. . . I don't see why not. How long will it be?"

            "Just the trip back. We'll take it slow, at an easy boost. You'll enjoy it."

            "Okay. Dak, don't figure this into my fee. I'm doing this piece of it just because I hate brainwashing."

            Dak bounced up and clapped me on the shoulder. "You're my kind of people, Lorenzo. Don't worry about your fee; you'll be taken care of." His manner changed. "Very well, Chief. See you in the morning, sir."

            But one thing leads to another. The boost we had started on Dak's return was a mere shift of orbits, to one farther out where there would be little chance of a news service sending up a shuttle for a follow-up story. I woke up in free fall, took a pill, and managed to eat breakfast. Penny showed up shortly thereafter. "Good morning, Mr. Bonforte."

            "Good morning, Penny." I inclined my head in the direction of the guest room. "Any news?"

            "No, sir. About the same. Captain's compliments and would it be too much trouble for you to come to his cabin?"

            "Not at all." Penny followed me in. Dak was there, with his heels hooked to his chair to stay in place; Rog and Bill were strapped to the couch.

            Dak looked around and sald, "Thanks for coming in, Chief. We need some help."

            "Good morning. What is it?"

            Clifton answered my greeting with his usual dignified deference and called me Chief; Corpsman nodded. Dak went on, "To clean this up in style you should make one more appearance."

            "Eh? I thought-"

            "Just a second. The networks were led to expect a major speech from you today, commenting on yesterday's event. I thought Rog intended to cancel it, but Bill has the speech worked up. Question is, will you deliver it?"

            The trouble with adopting a cat is that they always have kittens. "Where? Goddard City?"

            "Oh no. Right in your cabin. We beam it to Phobos; they can it for Mars and also put it on the high circuit for New Batavia, where the Earth nets will pick it up and where it will be relayed for Venus, Ganymede, et cetera. Inside of four hours it will be all over the system but you'll never have to stir out of your cabin."

There is something very tempting about a grand network. I had never been on one but once and that time my act got clipped down to the point where my face showed for only twenty-seven seconds. But to have one all to myself- Dak thought I was reluctant and added, "It won't be a strain, as

we are equipped to can it right here in the Tommie. Then we can project it first and clip out anything if necessary."

"Well-all right. You have the script, Bill?"

"Yes."

"Let me check it."

"What do you mean? You'll have it in plenty of time."

"Isn't that it in your hand?"

"Well, yes."

"Then let me read it."

            Corpsman looked annoyed. "You'll have it an hour before we record. These things go better if they sound spontaneous."

            "Sounding spontaneous is a matter of careful preparation, Bill. It's my trade. I know."

            "You did all right at the skyfield yesterday without rehearsal. This is just more of the same old hoke: I want you to do it the same way."

            Bonforte's personality was coming through stronger the longer Corpsman stalled; I think Clifton could see that I was about to cloud up and storm, for he said, "Oh, for Pete's sake, Bill! Hand him the speech."

            Corpsman snorted and threw the sheets at me. In free fall they sailed but the air spread them wide. Penny gathered them together, sorted them, and gave them to me. I thanked her, said nothing more, and started to read.

            I skimmed through it in a fraction of the time it would take to deliver it. Finally I finished and looked up.

            "Well?" said Rog.

            "About five minutes of this concerns the adoption. The rest is an argument for the policies of the Expansionist Party. Pretty much the same as I've heard in the speeches you've had me study."

            "Yes," agreed Clifton. "The adoption is the hook we hang the rest on. As you know, we expect to force a vote of confidence before long."

            "I understand. You can't miss this chance to beat the drum. Well, it's all right, but--"

            "But what? What's worrying you?"

            "Well-characterization. In several places the wording should be changed. It's not the way he would express it."

            Corpsman exploded with a word unnecessary in the presence of a lady; I gave him a cold glance. "Now see here, Smythe," he went on, "who knows how Bonforte would say it? You? Or the man who has been writing his speeches the past four years?"

            I tried to keep my temper; he had a point "It is nevertheless the case," I answered, "that a line which looks okay in print may not dellver well. Mr. Bonforte is a great orator, I have already learned. He belongs with Webster, Churchill, and Demosthenes-a rolling grandeur expressed in simple words. Now take this word 'intransigent,' which you have used twice. I might say that, but I have a weakness for polysyllables; I like to exhibit my literary erudition. But Mr. Bonforte would stay 'stubborn' or 'mulish' or 'pigheaded.' The reason he would is, naturally, that they convey emotion much more effectively."

            "You see that you make the delivery effective! I'll worry about the words."

            "You don't understand, Bill. I don't care whether the speech is politically effective or not; my job is to carry out a characterization. I can't do that if I put into the mouth of the character words that he would never use; it would sound as forced and phony as a goat spouting Greek. But if I read the speech in words he would use, it will automatically be effective. He's a great orator."

            "Listen, Smythe, you're not hired to write speeches. You're hired to-"

            "Hold it, Bill!" Dak cut in. "And a little less of that 'Smythe' stuff, too. Well, Rog? How about it?"

            Clifton said, "As I understand it, Chief, your only objection is to some of the phrasing?"

            "Well, yes. I'd suggest cutting out that personal attack on Mr. Quiroga, too, and the insinuation about his financial backers. It doesn't sound like real Bonforte to me."

            He looked sheepish. "That's a bit I put in myself. But you may be right. He always gives a man the benefit of the doubt." He remained silent for a moment. "You make the changes you think you have to. We'll can it and look at the playback. We can always clip it-or even cancel completely 'due to technical difficulties.'" He smiled grimly. "That's what we'll do, Bill."

            "Damn it, this is a ridiculous example of-"

            "That's how it is going to be, Bill."

            Corpsman left the room very suddenly. Clifton sighed. "Bill always has hated the notion that anybody but Mr. B. could give him instructions. But he's an able man. Uh, Chief, how soon can you be ready to record? We patch in at sixteen hundred."

            "I don't know. I'll be ready in time."

            Penny followed me back into my office. When she closed the door I said, "I won't need you for the next hour or so, Penny child. But you might ask Doc for more of those pills. I may need them."

            "Yes, sir." She floated with her back to the door. "Chief?"

            "Yes, Penny?"

            "I just wanted to say don't believe what Bill said about writing his speeches!"

            "I didn't. I've heard his speeches-and I've read this."

            "Oh, Bill does submit drafts, lots of times. So does Rog. I've even done it myself. He-he will use ideas from anywhere if he thinks they are good. But when he delivers a speech, it is his, every word of it."

            "I believe you. I wish he had written this one ahead of time."

            "You just do your best!"

            I did. I started out simply substituting synonyms, putting in the gutty Germanic words in place of the "intestinal" Latin jawbreakers. Then I got excited and red in the face and tore it to pieces. It's a lot of fun for an actor to mess around with lines; he doesn't get the chance very often.

            I used no one but Penny for my audience and made sure from Dak that I was not being tapped elsewhere in the ship-though I suspect that the big-boned galoot cheated on me and listened in himself. I had Penny in tears in the first three minutes; by the time I finished (twenty-eight and a half minutes, just time for station announcements), she was limp. I took no liberties with the straight Expansionist doctrine, as proclaimed by its official prophet, the Right Honorable John Joseph Bonforte; I simply reconstructed his message and his delivery, largely out of phrases from other speeches.

            Here's an odd thing-I believed every word of it while I was talking.

            But, brother, I made a speech!

            Afterwards we all listened to the playback, complete with full stereo of myself. Jimmie Washington was present, which kept Bill Corpsman quiet. When it was over I said, "How about it, Rog? Do we need to clip anything?"

            He took his cigar out of his mouth and said, "No. If you want my advice, Chief, I'd say to let it go as it is."

            Corpsman left the room again-but Mr. Washington came over with tears leaking out of his eyes-tears are a nuisance in free fall; there's nowhere for them to go. "Mr. Bonforte, that was beauti/ui."

            "Thanks, Jimmie."

            Penny could not talk at all.

            I turned in after that; a top-notch performance leaves me fagged. I slept for more than eight hours, then was awakened by the hooter. I had strapped myself to my bunk-I hate to float around while sleeping in free fall-so I did not have to move. But I had not known that we were getting under way so I called the control room between first and second warning. "Captain Broadbent?"

            "Just a moment, sir," I heard Epstein answer.

            Then Dak's voice came over. "Yes, Chief? We are getting under way on schedule-pursuant to your orders."

            "Eh? Oh yes, certainly."

            "I believe Mr. Clifton is on his way to your cabin."

            "Very well, Captain." I lay back and waited.

            Immediately after we started to boost at one gee Rog Clifton came in; he had a worried look on his face I could not interpret- equal parts of triumph, worry, and confusion. "What is it, Rog?"

            "Chief! They've jumped the gun on us! The Quiroga government has resigned!"

Chapter 7

            I was still logy with sleep; I shook my head to try to clear it. "What are you in such a spin about, Rog? That's what you were trying to accomplish, wasn't it?"

            "Well, yes, of course. But-" He stopped.

            "But what? I don't get it. Here you chaps have been working and scheming for years to bring about this very thing. Now you've won-and you look like a bride who isn't sure she wants to go through with it. Why? The no-good-nicks are out and now God's chillun get their innings. No?"

            "Uh-you haven't been in politics much."

            "You know I haven't. I got trimmed when I ran for patrol leader in my scout troop. That cured me."

            "Well, you see, timing is everything."

            "So my father always told me. Look here, Rog, do I gather that if you had your druthers you'd druther Quiroga was still in office? You said he had 'jumped the gun."

            "Let me explain. What we really wanted was to move a vote of confidence and win it, and thereby force a general election on them-but at our own time, when we estimated that we could win the election."

            "Oh. And you don't figure you can win now? You think Quiroga will go back into office for another five years-or at least the Humanity Party will?"

            Clifton looked thoughtful. "No, I think our chances are pretty good to win the election."

            "Eh? Maybe I'm not awake yet. Don't you want to win?"

            "Of course. But don't you see what this resignation has done to us?"

            "I guess I don't."

            "Well, the government in power can order a general election at any time up to the constitutional limitation of five years. Ordinarily they will go to the people when the time seems most favorable to them. But they don't resign between the announcement and the election unless forced to. You follow me?"

            I realized that the event did seem odd, little attention as I paid to politics. "I believe so."

            "But in this case Quiroga's government scheduled a general election, then resigned in a body, leaving the Empire without a government. Therefore the sovereign must call on someone else to form a 'caretaker' government to serve until the election. By the letter of the law he can ask any member of the Grand Assembly, but as a matter of strict constitutional precedent he has no choice. When a government resigns in a body-not just reshuffling portfolios but quits as a whole-then the sovereign must call on the leader of the opposition to form the 'caretaker' government. It's indispensable to our system; it keeps resigning from being just a gesture. Many other methods have been tried in the past; under some of them governments were changed as often as underwear. But our present system insures responsible government."

            I was so busy trying to see the implications that I almost missed his next remark. "So, naturally, the Emperor has summoned Mr. Bonforte to New Batavia."

            "Eh? New Batavia? Welll" I was thinking that I had never seen the Imperial capital. The one time I had been on the Moon the vicissitudes of my profession had left me without time or money for the side trip. "Then that is why we got under way? Well, I certainly don't mind. I suppose you can always find a way to send me home if the Tommie doesn't go back to Earth soon."

            "What? Good heavens, don't worry about that now. When the time comes, Captain Broadbent can find any number of ways to deliver you home."

            "Sorry. I forget that you have more important matters on your mind, Rog. Sure, I'm anxious to get home now that the job is done. But a few days, or even a month, on Luna would not matter. I have nothing pressing me. But thanks for taking time to tell me the news." I searched his face. "Rog, you look worried as hell."

            "Don't you see? The Emperor has sent for Mr. Bonforte. The Emperor, man! And Mr. Bonforte is in no shape to appear at an audience. They have risked a gambit-and perhaps trapped us in a checkmate!"

            "Eh? Now wait a minute. Slow up. I see what you are driving at

-but, look, friend, we aren't at New Batavia. We're a hundred million miles away, or two hundred million, or whatever it is. Doc Capek will have him wrung out and ready to speak his piece by then. Won't he?"

            "Well-we hope so."

            "But you aren't sure?"

            "We can't be sure. Capek says that there is little clinical data on such massive doses. It depends on the individual's body chemistry and on the exact drug used."

            I suddenly remembered a time when an understudy had slipped me a powerful purgative just before a performance. (But I went on anyhow, which proves the superiority of mind over matter- then I got him fired.) "Rog-they gave him that last, unnecessarily big dose not just out of simple sadism-but to set up this situation!"

            "I think so. So does Capek."

            "Hey! In that case it would mean that Quiroga himself is the man behind the kidnapping-and that we've had a gangster running the Empire!"

            Rog shook his head. "Not necessarily. Not even probably. But it would indeed mean that the same forces who control the Actionists also control the machinery of the Humanity Party. But you will never pin anything on them; they are unreachable, ultrarespectable. Nevertheless, they could send word to Quiroga that the time had come to roll over and play dead-and have him do it. Almost certainly," he added, "without giving him a hint of the real reason why the moment was timely."

            "Criminy! Do you mean to tell me that the top man in the Empire would fold up and quit, just like that? Because somebody behind the scenes ordered him to?"

            "I'm afraid that is just what I do think."

            I shook my head. "Politics is a dirty game!"

            "No," Clifton answered insistently. "There is no such thing as a dirty game. But you sometimes run into dirty players."

            "I don't see the difference."

            "There is a world of difference. Quiroga is a third-rater and a stooge-in my opinion, a stooge for villains. But there is nothing third-rate about John Joseph Bonforte and he has never, ever been a stooge for anyone. As a follower, he believed in the cause; as the leader, he has led from conviction!"

            "I stand corrected," I said humbly. "Well, what do we do? Have Dak drag his feet so that the Tommie does not reach New Batavia until he is back in shape to do the job?"

            "We can't stall. We don't have to boost at more than one gravity; nobody would expect a man Bonforte's age to place unnecessary strain on his heart. But we can't delay. When the Emperor sends for you, you come."

            "Then what?"

            Rog looked at me without answering. I began to get edgy. "Hey, Rog, don't go getting any wild notions! This hasn't anything to do with me. I'm through, except for a few casual appearances around the ship. Dirty or not, politics is not my game-just pay me off and ship me home and I'll guarantee never even to register to vote!"

            "You probably wouldn't have to do anything. Dr. Capek will almost certainly have him in shape for it. But it isn't as if it were anything hard-not like that adoption ceremony-just an audience with the Emperor and--"

            "The Emperor!" I almost screamed. Like most Americans, I did not understand royalty, did not really approve of the institution in my heart-and had a sneaking, unadmitted awe of kings. After all, we Americans came in by the back door. When we swapped associate status under treaty for the advantages of a full voice in the affairs of the Empire, it was explicitly agreed that our local institutions, our own constitution, and so forth, would not be affected-and tacitly agreed that no member of the royal family would ever visit America. Maybe that is a bad thing. Maybe if we were used to royalty we would not be so impressed by them. In any case, it is notorious that "democratic" American women are more quiveringly anxious to be presented at court than is anybody else.

            "Now take it easy," Rog answered. "You probably won't have to do it at all. We just want to be prepared. What I was trying to tell you is that a 'caretaker' government is no problem. It passes no laws, changes no policies. I'll take care of all the work. All you will have to do-if you have to do anything-is make the formal appearance before King Wilem-and possibly show up at a controlled press conference or two, depending on how long it is before he is well again. What you have already done is much harder-and you will be paid whether we need you or not."

            "Damn it, pay has nothing to do with it! It's-well, in the words of a famous character in theatrical history, 'Include me out.'"

            Before Rog could answer, Bill Corpsman came bursting into my cabin without knocking, looked at us, and said sharply to Clifton, "Have you told him?"

            "Yes," agreed Clifton. "He's turned down the job."

            "Huh? Nonsense!"

            "It's not nonsense," I answered, "and by the way, Bill, that door you just came through has a nice spot on it to knock. In the profession the custom is to knock and shout, 'Are you decent?' I wish you would remember it."

            "Oh, dirty sheets! We're in a hurry. What's this guff about your refusing?"

            "It's not guff. This is not the job I signed up for."

            "Garbage! Maybe you are too stupid to realize it, Smythe, but you are in too deep to prattle about backing out. It wouldn't be healthy."

            I went to him and grabbed his arm. "Are you threatening me? If you are, let's go outside and talk it over."

            He shook my hand off. "In a spaceship? You really are simple, aren't you? But haven't you got it through your thick head that you caused this mess yourself?"

            "What do you mean?"

            "He means," Clifton answered, "that he is convinced that the fall of the Quiroga government was the direct result of the speech you made earlier today. It is even possible that he is right. But it is beside the point. Bill, try to be reasonably polite, will you? We get nowhere by bickering."

            I was so surprised by the suggestion that I had caused Quiroga to resign that I forgot all about my desire to loosen Corpsman's teeth. Were they serious? Sure, it was one dilly of a fine speech, but was such a result possible?

            Well, if it was, it was certainly fast service.

            I said wonderingly, "Bill, do I understand that you are complaining that the speech I made was too effective to suit you?"

            "Huh? Hell, no! It was a lousy speech."

            "So? You can't have it both ways. You're saying that a lousy speech went over so big that it scared the Humanity Party right out of office. Is that what you meant?"

            Corpsman looked annoyed, started to answer, and caught sight of Clifton suppressing a grin. He scowled, again started to reply- finally shrugged and said, "All right, buster, you proved your point; the speech could not have had anything to do with the fall of the Quiroga government. Nevertheless, we've got work to do. So what's this about you not being willing to carry your share of the load?"

            I looked at him and managed to keep my temper-Bonforte's influence again; playing the part of a calm-tempered character tends to make one calm inside. "Bill, again you cannot have it two ways. You have made it emphatically clear that you consider me just a hired hand. Therefore I have no obligation beyond my job, which is finished. You can't hire me for another job unless it suits me. It doesn't."

            He started to speak but I cut in. "That's all. Now get out. You're not welcome here."

            He looked astounded. "Who the hell do you think you are to give orders around here?"

            "Nobody. Nobody at all, as you have pointed out. But this is my private room, assigned to me by the Captain. So now get out or be thrown out. I don't like your manners."

            Clifton added quietly, "Clear out, Bill. Regardless of anything else, it is his private cabin at the present time. So you had better leave." Rog hesitated, then added, "I think we both might as well leave; we don't seem to be getting anywhere. If you will excuse us

-Chief?"

            "Certainly."

            I sat and thought about it for several minutes. I was sorry that I had let Corpsman provoke me even into such a mild exchange; it lacked dignity. But I reviewed it in my mind and assured myself that my personal differences with Corpsman had not affected my decision; my mind had been made up before he appeared.

            A sharp knock came at the door. I called out, "Who is it?"

            "Captain Broadbent."

            "Come in, Dak."

            He did so, sat down, and for some minutes seemed interested only in pulling hangnails. Finally he looked up and said, "Would it change your mind if I slapped the blighter in the brig?"

            "Eh? Do you have a brig in the ship?"

            "No. But it would not be hard to jury-rig one."

            I looked at him sharply, trying to figure what went on inside that bony head. "Would you actually put Bill in the brig if I asked for it?"

            He looked up, cocked a brow, and grinned wryly. "No. A man doesn't get to be a captain operating on any such basis as that. I would not take that sort of order even from him." He inclined his head toward the room Bonforte was in. "Certain decisions a man must make himself."

            "That's right."

            "Mmm-I hear you've made one of that sort."

            "That's right."

            "So. I've come to have a lot of respect for you, old son. First met you, I figured you for a clotheshorse and a facemaker, with nothing inside. I was wrong."

            "Thank you."

            "So I won't plead with you. Just tell me: is it worth our time to discuss the factors? Have you given it plenty of thought?"

            "My mind is made up, Dak. This isn't my pidgin."

            "Well, perhaps you're right. I'm sorry. I guess we'll just have to hope he pulls out of it in time." He stood up. "By the way, Penny would like to see you, if you aren't going to turn in again this minute."

            I laughed without pleasure. "Just 'by the way,' eh? Is this the proper sequence? Isn't it Dr. Capek's turn to try to twist my arm?"

            "He skipped his turn; he's busy with Mr. B. He sent you a message, though."

            "He said you could go to hell. Embroidered it a bit, but that was the gist."

            "He did? Well, tell him I'll save him a seat by the fire."

            "Can Penny come in?"

            "Oh, sure! But you can tell her that she is wasting her time; the answer is still 'No.'"

            So I changed my mind. Confound it, why should an argument seem so much more logical when underlined with a whiff of Jungle Lust? Not that Penny used unfair means, she did not even shed tears-not that I laid a finger on her-but I found myself conceding points, and presently there were no more points to concede. There is no getting around it, Penny is the world-saver type and her sincerity is contagious.

            The boning I did on the trip out to Mars was as nothing to the hard study I put in on the trip to New Batavia. I already had the basic character; now it was necessary to fill in the background, prepare myself to be Bonforte under almost any circumstances. While it was the royal audience I was aiming at, once we were at New Batavia I might have to meet any of hundreds or thousands of people. Rog planned to give me a defense in depth of the sort that is routine for any public figure if he is to get work done; nevertheless, I would have to see people-a public figure is a public figure, no way to get around that.

            The tightrope act I was going to have to attempt was made possible only by Bonforte's Farleyfile, perhaps the best one ever compiled. Farley was a political manager of the twentieth century, of Eisenhower I believe, and the method he invented for handling the personal relations of politics was as revolutionary as the German invention of staff command was to warfare. Yet I had never heard of the device until Penny showed me Bonforte's.

            It was nothing but a file about people. However, the art of politics is "nothing but" people. This file contained all, or almost all, of the thousands upon thousands of people Bonforte had met in the course of his long public life; each dossier consisted of what he knew about that person from Bon forte's own personal contact. Anything at all, no matter how trivial-in fact, trivia were always the first entries: names and nicknames of wives, children, and pets, hobbies, tastes in food or drink, prejudices, eccentricities. Following this would be listed date and place and comments for every occasion on which Boriforte had talked to that particular man.

            When available, a photo was included. There might or might not be "below-the-line" data, i.e. information which had been researched rather than learned directly by Bonforte. It depended on the political importance of the person. In some cases the "below-the-line" part was a formal biography running to thousands of words.

            Both Penny and Bonforte himself carried minicorders powered by theft body heat. If Bonforte was alone he would dictate into his own when opportunity offered-in rest rooms, while riding, etc.; if Penny went along she would take it down in hers, which was disguised to look like a wrist watch. Penny could not possibly do the transcribing and microfilming; two of Jimmie Washington's girls did little else.

            When Penny showed me the Farleyfile, showed me the very bulk of it-and it was bulky, even at ten thousand words or more to the spool-and then told me that this represented personal information about Mr. Bonforte's acquaintances, I scroaned (which is a scream and groan done together, with intense feeling). "God's mercy, child! I tried to tell you this job could not be done. How could anyone memorize all that?"

            "Why, you can't, of course."

            "You just said that this was what he remembered about his friends and acquaintances."

            "Not quite. I said that this is what he wanted to remember. But since he can't, not possibly, this is how he does it. Don't worry; you don't have to memorize anything. I just want you to know that it is available. It is my job to see that he has at least a minute or two to study the appropriate Farleyfile before anybody gets in to see him. If the need turns up, I can protect you with the same service."

            I looked at the typical file she had projected on the desk reader.

A Mr. Saunders of Pretoria, South Africa, I believe it was. He had a bulldog named Snuffles Bullyboy, several assorted uninteresting offspring, and he liked a twist of lime in his whisky and splash.

"Penny, do you mean to tell me that Mr. B. pretends to remember minutiae like that? It strikes me as rather phony."

            Instead of getting angry at the slur on her idol Penny nodded soberly. "I thought so once. But you don't look at it correctly, Chief. Do you ever write down the telephone number of a friend?"

            "Eh? Of course."

            "Is it dishonest? Do you apologize to your friend for caring so little about him that you can't simply remember his number?"

            "Eh? All right, I give up. You've sold me."

            "These are things he would like to remember if his memory were perfect. Since it isn't, it is no more phony to do it this way than it is to use a tickler file in order not to forget a friend's birthday-that's what it is: a giant tickler file, to cover anything. But there is more to it. Did you ever meet a really important person?"

            I tried to think. Penny did not mean the greats of the theatrical profession; she hardly knew they existed. "I once met President Warfield. I was a kid of ten or eleven."

            "Do you remember the details?"

            "Why, certainly. He said, 'How did you break that arm, son?' and I said, 'Riding a bicycle, sir,' and he said, 'Did the same thing myself, only it was a collarbone.'"

            "Do you think he would remember it if he were still alive?"

            "Why, no."

            "He might-he may have had you Farleyfiled. This Farleyfile includes boys of that age, because boys grow up and become men. The point is that top-level men like President Warfield meet many more people than they can remember. Each one of that faceless throng remembers his own meeting with the famous man and remembers it in detail. But the supremely important person in anyone's life is himself-and a politician must never forget that. So it is polite and friendly and warmhearted for the politician to have a way to be able to remember about other people the sort of little things that they are likely to remember about him. It is also essential-in politics."

            I had Penny display the Farleyfile on King Willem. It was rather short, which dismayed me at first, until I concluded that it meant that Bonforte did not know the Emperor well and had met him only on a few official occasions-Bonforte's first service as Supreme Minister had been before old Emperor Frederick's death. There was no biography below the line, but just a notation, "See House of Orange." I didn't-there simply wasn't time to plow through a few million words of Empire and pre-Empire history and, anyhow, I got fair-to-excellent marks in history when I was in school. All I wanted to know about the Emperor was what Bonforte knew about him that other people did not.

            It occurred to me that the Farleyfile must include everybody in the ship since they were (a) people (b) whom Bonforte had met. I asked Penny for them. She seemed a little surprised.

            Soon I was the one surprised. The Torn Paine had in her six Grand Assemblymen. Rog Clifton and Mr. Bonforte, of course- but the first item in Dak's file read: "Broadbent, Darius K., the Honorable, 0. A. for League of Free Travelers, Upper Division." It also mentioned that he held a Ph.D. in physics, had been reserve champion with the pistol in the Imperial Matches nine years earlier, and had published thee volumes of verse under the nom de plume of "Acey Wheelwright." I resolved never again to take a man at merely his face value.

            There was a notation in Bonforte's sloppy handwriting: "Almost irresistible to women-and vice versa!"

            Penny and Dr. Capek were also members of the great parliament. Even Jimmie Washington was a member, for a "safe" district, I realized later-he represented the Lapps, including all the reindeer and Santa Claus, no doubt. He was also ordained in the First Bible Truth Church of the Holy Spirit, which I had never heard of, but which accounted for his tight-lipped deacon look.

            I especially enjoyed reading about Penny-the Honorable Miss Penelope Taliaferro Russell. She was an M.A. in government administration from Georgetown and a B.A. from Wellesley, which somehow did not surprise me. She represented districtless university women, another "safe" constituency (I learned) since they are about five to one Expansionist Party members.

            On down below were her glove size, her other measurements, her preferences in colors (I could teach her something about dressing), her preference in scent (Jungle Lust, of course), and many other details, most of them innocuous enough. But there was "comment":

            "Neurotically honest-arithmetic unreliable-prides herself on her sense of humor, of which she has none-watches her diet but is gluttonous about candied cherries-little-mother-of-all-living complex-unable to resist reading the printed word in any form."

            Underneath was another of Bonforte's handwritten addenda:

"Ah, Curly Top! Snooping again, I see."

            As I turned them back to her I asked Penny if she had read her own Farleyfile. She told me snippily to mind my own business! Then turned red and apologized.

            Most of my time was taken up with study but I did take time to review and revise carefully the physical resemblance, checking the Semiperm shading by colorimeter, doing an extremely careful job on the wrinkles, adding two moles, and setting the whole job with electric brush. It was going to mean a skin peel before I could get my own face back but that was a small price to pay for a make-up job that could not be damaged, could not be smeared even with acetone, and was proof against such hazards as napkins. I even added the scar on the "game" leg, using a photograph Capek had kept in Bonforte's health history. If Bonforte had had wife or mistress, she would have had difficulty in telling the impostor from the real thing simply on physical appearance. It was a lot of trouble but it left my mind free to worry about the really difficult part of the impersonation.

            But the all-out effort during the trip was to steep myself in what Bonforte thought and believed, in short the policies of the Expansionist Party. In a manner of speaking, he himself was the Expansionist Party, not merely its most prominent leader but its political philosopher and greatest statesman. Expansionism had hardly been more than a "Manifest Destiny" movement when the party was founded, a rabble coalition of groups who had one thing in common: the belief that the frontiers in the sky were the mast important issue in the emerging future of the human race. Bonforte had given the party a rationale and an ethic, the theme that freedom and equal rights must run with the Imperial banner; he kept harping on the notion that the human race must never again make the mistakes that the white subrace had made in Africa and Asia.

            But I was confused by the fact-I was awfully unsophisticated in such matters-that the early history of the Expansionist Party sounded remarkably like the present Humanity Party. I was not aware that political parties often change as much in growing up as people do. I had known vaguely that the Humanity Party had started as a splinter of the Expansionist movement but I had never thought about it. Actually it was inevitable; as the political parties which did not have their eyes on the sky dwindled away under the imperatives of history and ceased to elect candidates, the one party which had been on the right track was bound to split into two factions.

            But I am running ahead; my political education did not proceed so logically. At first I simply soaked myself in Bonforte's public utterances. True, I had done that on the trip out, but then I was studying how he spoke; now I was studying what he said.

            Bonforte was an orator in the grand tradition but he could be vitriolic in debate, e.g; a speech he made in New Paris during the ruckus over the treaty with the Martian nests, the Concord of Tycho. It was this treaty which had knocked him out of office before; he had pushed it through but the strain on the coalition had lost him the next vote of confidence. Nevertheless, Quiroga had not dared denounce the treaty. I listened to this speech with special interest since I had not liked the treaty myself; the idea that Martians must be granted the same privileges on Earth that humans enjoyed on Mars had been abhorrent to me-until I visited the Kkkah nest.

            "My opponent," Bonforte had said with a rasp in his voice, "would have you believe that the motto of the so-called Humanity Party, 'Government of human beings, by human beings, and for human beings,' is no more than an updating of the immortal words of Lincoln. But while the voice is the voice of Abraham, the hand is the hand of the Ku Klux Klan. The true meaning of that innocent-seeming motto is 'Government of all races everywhere, by human beings alone, for the profit of a privileged few.'

            "But, my opponent protests, we have a God-given mandate to spread enlightenment through the stan, dispensing our own brand of Civilization to the savages. This is the Uncle Remus school of sociology-the good dahides singin' spirituals and Ole Massa lubbin' every one of dem! It is a beautiful picture but the frame is too small; it fails to show the whip, the slave block-and the counting house!"

            I found myself becoming, if not an Expansionist, then at least a Bonfortite. I am not sure that I was convinced by the logic of his words-indeed, I am not sure that they were logical. But I was in a receptive frame of mind. I wanted to understand what he said so thoroughly that I could rephrase it and say it in his place, if need be.

            Nevertheless, here was a man who knew what he wanted and (much rarer!) why he wanted it. I could not help but be impressed, and it forced me to examine my own beliefs. What did I live by?

            My profession, surely! I had been brought up in it, I liked it, I had a deep though unlogical conviction that art was worth the effort-and, besides, it was the only way I knew to make a living. But what else?

            I have never been impressed by the formal schools of ethics. I had sampled them-public libraries are a ready source of recreation for an actor short of cash-but I had found them as poor in vitamins as a mother-in-law's kiss. Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.

            I had the same contempt for the moral instruction handed to mast children. Much of it is prattle and the parts they really seem to mean are dedicated to the sacred proposition that a "good" child is one who does not disturb mother's nap and a "good" man is one who achieves a muscular bank account without getting caught. No, thanks!

            But even a dog has rules of conduct. What were mine? How did I behave-or, at least, how did I like to think I behaved?

            "The show must go on." I had always believed that and lived by it. But why must the show go on?-seeing that some shows are pretty terrible. Well, because you agreed to do it, because there is an audience out there; they have paid and each one of them is entitled to the best you can give. You owe it to them. You owe it also to stagehands and manager and producer and other members of the company-and to those who taught you your trade, and to others stretching back in history to open-air theaters and stone seats and even to storytellers squatting in a market place. Noblesse oblige.

            I decided that the notion could be generalized into any occupation. "Value for value." Building "on the square and on the level." The Hippocratic oath. Don't let the team down. Honest work for honest pay. Such things did not have to be proved; they were an essential part of life-true throughout eternity, true in the farthest reaches of the Galaxy.

            I suddenly got a glimpse of what Bonforte was driving at. If there were ethical basics that transcended time and place, then they were true both for Martians and for men. They were true on any planet around any star-and if the human race did not behave accordingly they weren't ever going to win to the stars because some better race would slap them down for double-dealing.

            The price of expansion was virtue. "Never give a sucker an even break" was too narrow a philosophy to fit the broad reaches of space.

            But Bonforte was not preaching sweetness and light. "I am not a pacifist. Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay-and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Mr. Speaker, life belongs to those who do not fear to lose it. This bill must pass!" And with that he had got up and crossed the aisle in support of a military appropriation his own party had refused in caucus.

            Or again: "Take sides! Always take sides! You will sometimes be wrong-but the man who refuses to take sides must always be wrong! Heaven save us from poltroons who fear to make a choice. Let us stand up and be counted." (This last was in a closed caucus but Penny had caught it on her minicorder and Bonforte had saved it-Bonforte had a sense of history; he was a record keeper. If he had not been, I would not have had much to work with.)

            I decided that Bonforte was my kind of man. Or at least the kind I liked to think I was. His was a persona I was proud to wear.

            So far as I can remember I did not sleep on that trip after I promised Penny that I would take the royal audience if Bonforte could not be made ready. I intended to sleep-there is no point in taking your stage with your eyes bagging like hound's ears-but I got interested in what I was studying and there was a plentiful supply of pepper pills in Bonforte's desk. It is amazing how much ground you can cover working a twenty-four-hour day, free from interruptions and with all the help you could ask for.

            But shortly before we were due at New Batavia, Dr. Capek came in and said, "Bare your left forearm."

            "Why?" I asked.

            "Because when you go before the Emperor we don't want you falling flat on your face with fatigue. This will make you sleep until we ground. Then I'll give you an antidote."

            "Eh? I take it that you don't think he will be ready?"

            Capek did not answer, but gave me the shot. I tried to finish listening to the speech I was running but I must have been asleep in seconds. The next thing I knew Dak was saying deferentially, "Wake up, sir. Please wake up. We're grounded at Lippershey Field."

Chapter 8

            Our Moon being an airless planet, a torchship can land on it. But the Tom Paine, being a torchship, was really intended to stay in space and be serviced only at space stations in orbit; she had to be landed in a cradle. I wish I had been awake to see it, for they say that catching an egg on a plate is easy by comparison. Dak was one of the half dozen pilots who could do it.

            But I did not even get to see the Tommie in her cradle; all I saw was the inside of the passenger bellows they fastened to her air lock and the passenger tube to New Batavia-those tubes are so fast that, under the low gravity of the Moon, you are again in free fall at the middle of the trip.

            We went first to the apartments assigned to the leader of the loyal opposition, Bonforte's official residence until (and if) he went back into power after the coming election. The magnificence of them made me wonder what the Supreme Minister's residence was like. I suppose that New Batavia is odds-on the most palatial capital city in all history; it is a shame that it can hardly be seen from outdoors-but that minor shortcoming is more than offset by the fact that it is the only city in the Solar System that is actually impervious to fusion bombs. Or perhaps I should say "effectively impervious" since there are some surface structures which could be destroyed. Bonforte's apartments included an upper living room in the side of a cliff, which looked out through a bubble balcony at the stars and Mother Earth herself-but his sleeping room and offices were a thousand feet of solid rock below, by private lift.

            I had no time to explore the apartments; they dressed me for the audience. Bonforte had no valet even dirtside, but Rog insisted on "helping" me (he was a hindrance) while going over lastminute details. The dress was ancient formal court dress, shapeless tubular trousers, a silly jacket with a claw-hammer tail, both in black, and a chemise consisting of a stiff white breastplate, a "winged" collar, and a white bow tie. Bonforte's chemise was all in one piece, because (I suppose) he did not use a dresser; correctly it should be assembled piece by piece and the bow tie should be tied poorly enough to show that it has been tied by hand-but it is too much to expect a man to understand both politics and period costuming.

            It is an ugly costume, but it did make a fine background for the Order of Wilhelmina stretched in colorful diagonal across my chest. I looked at myself in a long glass and was pleased with the effect; the one color accent against the dead black and white was good showmanship. The traditional dress might be ugly but it did have dignity, something like the cool stateliness of a maître d'hôtel. I decided that I looked the part to wait on the pleasure of a sovereign.

            Rog Clifton gave me the scroll which was supposed to list the names of my nominations for the ministries and he tucked into an inner pocket of my costume a copy of the typed list thereof-the original had gone forward by hand of Jimmie Washington to the Emperor's State Secretary as soon as we had grounded. Theoretically the purpose of the audience was for the Emperor to inform me that it was his pleasure for me to form a government and for me to submit humbly my suggestions; my nominations were supposed to be secret until the sovereign graciously approved.

            Actually the choices were all made; Rog and Bill had spent most of the trip lining up the Cabinet and making sure the nominees would serve, using state-scramble for the radio messages. I had studied the Farleyflies on each nomination and each alternate. But the list really was secret in the sense that the news services would not receive it until after the Imperial audience.

            I took the scroll and picked up my life wand. Rog looked horrified. "Good Lord, man, you can't carry that thing into the presence of the Emperor!"

            "Why not?"

            "Huh? It's a weapon."

            "It's a ceremonial weapon. Rog, every duke and every pipsqueak baronet will be wearing his dress sword. So I wear this."

            He shook his head. "They have to. Don't you understand the ancient legal theory behind it? Their dress swords symbolize the duty they owe their liege lord to support and defend him by force of arms, in their own persons. But you are a commoner; tradi-. tionally you come before him unarmed."

            "No, Rog. Oh, I'll do what you tell me to, but you are missing a wonderful chance to catch a tide at its flood. This is good theater, this is right."

            "I'm afraid I don't follow you."

            "Well, look, will the word get back to Mars if I carry this wand today? Inside the nests, I mean?"

            "Eh? I suppose so. Yes."

            "Of course. I would guess that every nest has stereo receivers; I certainly noticed plenty of them in Kkkah nest. They follow the Empire news as carefully as we do. Don't they?"

            "Yes. At least the elders do."

            "II I carry the wand, they'll know it; if I fail to carry it, they will know it. It matters to them; it is tied up with propriety. No adult Martian would appear outside his nest without his life wand, or inside on ceremonial occasions. Martians have appeared before the Emperor in the past; they carried their wands, didn't they? I'd bet my life on it."

            "Yes, but you-"

            "You forget that 1 am a Martian."

            Rog's face suddenly blanked out. I went on, "I am not only 'John Joseph Bonforte'; I am Kkkahjjjerrr of Kkkah nest. If I fail to carry that wand, I commit a great impropriety-and frankly I do not know what would happen when the word got back; I don't know enough about Martian customs. Now turn it around and look at it the other way. When I walk down that aisle carrying this wand, I am a Martian citizen about to be named His Imperial Majesty's first minister. How will that affect the nests?"

            "I guess I had not thought it through," he answered slowly.

            "Nor would I have done so, had I not had to decide whether or not to carry the wand. But don't you suppose Mr. B. thought it through-before he ever let himself be invited to be adopted? Rog, we've got a tiger by the tail; the only thing to do is to swarm aboard and ride it. We can't let go."

            Dak arrived at that point, confirmed my opinion, seemed surprised that Clifton had expected anything else. "Sure, we're setting a new precedent, Rog-but we're going to set a lot of new ones before we are through." But when he saw how I was carrying the wand he let out a scream. "Cripes, man! Are you trying to kill somebody? Or just carve a hole in the wall?"

            "I wasn't pressing the stud."

            "Thank God for small favors! You don't even have the safety on." He took it from me very gingerly and said, "You twist this ring-and shove this in that slot-then it's just a stick. Whew!"

            "Oh. Sorry."

            They delivered me to the robing room of the Palace and turned me over to King Willem's equerry, Colonel Pateel, a bland-faced Hindu with perfect manners and the dazzling dress uniform of the Imperial space forces. His bow to me must have been calculated on a slide rule; it suggested that I was about to be Supreme Minister but was not quite there yet, that I was his senior but nevertheless a civilian-then subtract five degrees for the fact that he wore the Emperor's aiguillette on his right shoulder.

            He glanced at the wand and said smoothly, "That's a Martian wand, is it not, sir? Interesting. I suppose you will want to leave it here-it will be safe."

            I said, "I'm carrying it."

            "Sir?" His eyebrows shot up and he waited for me to correct my obvious mistake.

            I reached into Bonforte's favorite clichés and picked one he used to reprove bumptiousness. "Son, suppose you tend to your knitting and I tend to mine."

            His face lost all expression. "Very well, sir. If you will come this way?"

            We paused at the entrance to the throne room. Far away, on the raised dais, the throne was empty. On both sides the entire length of the great cavern the nobles and royalty of the court were standing and waiting. I suppose Pateel passed along some sign, for the Imperial Anthem welled out and we all held still for it, Pateel in robotlike attention, myself in a tired stoop suitable to a middleaged and overworked roan who must do this thing because he must, and all the court like show-window pieces. I hope we never dispense with the pageantry of a court entirely; all those noble dress extras and spear carriers make a beautiful sight.

            In the last few bars he came in from behind and took his throne

-Willem, Prince of Orange, Duke of Nassau, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, Knight Commander of the Holy Roman Empire, Admiral General of the Imperial Forces, Adviser to the Martian Nests, Protector of the Poor, and, by the Grace of God, King of the Lowlands and Emperor of the Planets and the Spaces Between.

            I could not see his face, but the symbolism produced in me a sudden warm surge of empathy. I no longer felt hostile to the notion of royalty.

            As King Willem sat down the anthem ended; he nodded acknowledgment of the salute and a wave of slight relaxation rippled down the courtiers. Pateel withdrew and, with my wand tucked under my arm, I started my long march, limping a little in spite of the low gravity. It felt remarkably like the progress to the Inner Nest of Kkkah, except that I was not frightened; I was simply warm and tingling. The Empire medley followed me down, the music sliding from "King Christian" to "Marseillaise" to "The StarSpangled Banner" and all the others.

            At the first balk line I stopped and bowed, then again at the second, then at last a deep bow at the third, just before the steps. I did not kneel; nobles must kneel but commoners share sovereignty with the Sovereign. One sees this point incorrectly staged some- times in stereo and theater, and Rog had made sure that I knew what to do.

            "A ye, Imperator!" Had I been a Dutchman I would have said "Rex" as well, but I was an American. We swapped schoolboy Latin back and forth by rote, he inquiring what I wanted, I reminding him that he had summoned me, etc. He shifted into Anglo-American, with a slight "down-East" accent.

            "You served our father well. it is now our thought that you might serve us. How say you?"

            "My sovereign's wish is my will, Majesty."

            "Approach us."

            Perhaps I made too good a thing of it but the steps up the dais are high and my leg actually was hurting-and a psychosomatic pain is as bad as any other. I almost stumbled-and Willem was up out of his throne like a shot and steadied my arm. I heard a gasp go around the hall. He smiled at me and said sotto voce, "Take it easy, old friend. Wet make this short."

            He helped me to the stool before the throne and made me sit down an awkward moment sooner than he himself was again seated. Then he held out his hand for the scroll and I passed it over. He unrolled it and pretended to study the blank page.

            There was chamber music now and the court made a display of enjoying themselves, ladies laughing, noble gentlemen uttering gallantries, fans gesturing. No one moved very far from his place, no one held still. Little page boys, looking like Michelangelo's cherubim, moved among them offering trays of sweets. One knelt to Willem and he helped himself without taking his eyes off the nonexistent list. The child then offered the tray to me and I took one, not knowing whether it was proper or not. It was one of those wonderful, matchless chocolates made only in Holland.

            I found that I knew a number of the court faces from pictures. Most of the unemployed royalty of Earth were there, concealed under their secondary titles of duke or count. Some said that Willem kept them on as pensioners to brighten his court; some said he wanted to keep an eye on them and keep them out of politics and other mischief. Perhaps it was a little of both. There were the nonroyal nobility of a dozen nations present, too; some of them actually worked for a living.

            I found myself trying to pick out the Habsburg lips and the Windsor nose.

            At last Willem put down the scroll. The music and the conversation ceased instantly. In dead silence he said, "It is a gallant company you have proposed. We are minded to confirm it."

            "You are most gracious, Majesty."

            "We will ponder and inform you." He leaned forward and said quietly to me alone, "Don't try to back down those damned steps. Just stand up. I am going to leave at once."

            I whispered back, "Oh. Thank you, Sire."

            He stood up, whereupon I got hastily to my feet, and he was gone in a swirl of robes. I turned around and noticed some startled looks. But the music started up at once and I was let to walk out while the noble and regal extras again made polite conversation.

            Pateel was at my elbow as soon as I was through the far archway. "This way, sir, if you please."

            The pageantry was over; now came the real audience.

            He took me through a small door, down an empty corridor, through another small door, and into a quite ordinary office. The only thing regal about it was a carved wall plaque, the coat of arms of the House of Orange, with its deathless motto, "I Maintain!" There was a big, fiat desk, littered with papers. In the middle of it, held down by a pair of metal-plated baby shoes, was the original of the typed list in my pocket. In a copper frame there was a family group picture of the late Empress and the kids. A somewhat battered couch was against one wall and beyond it was a small bar. There were a couple of armchairs as well as the swivel chair at the desk. The other furnishings might have suited the office of a busy and not fussy family physician.

            Pateel left me alone there, closing the door behind him. I did not have time to consider whether or not it was proper for me to sit down, as the Emperor came quickly in through a door opposite. "Howdy, Joseph," he called out. "Be with you in a moment." He strode through the room, followed closely by two servants who were undressing him as he walked, and went out a third door. He was back again almost at once, zipping up a suit of coveralls as he came in. "You took the short route; I had to come long way around. I'm going to insist that the palace engineer cut another tunnel through from the back of the throne room, dammed if I'm not. I have to come around three sides of a square-either that or parade through semi-public corridors dressed like a circus horse." He added meditatively, "I never wear anything but underwear under those silly robes."

            I said, "I doubt if they are as uncomfortable as this monkey jacket I am wearing, Sire."

            He shrugged. "Oh well, we each have to put up with the inconveniences of our jobs. Didn't you get yourself a drink?" He picked up the list of nominations for cabinet ministers. "Do so, and pour me one."

            "What will you have, Sire?"

            "Eh?" He looked up and glanced sharply at me. "My usual. Scotch on ice, of course."

            I said nothing and poured them, adding water to my own. I had had a sudden chill; if Bonforte knew that the Emperor always took scotch over bare cubes it should have been in his Farleyfile. It was not.

            But Willem accepted the drink without comment, murmured, "Hot jets!" and went on looking at the list. Presently he looked up and said, "How about these lads, Joseph?"

            "Sire? It is a skeleton cabinet, of course." We had doubled up on portfolios where possible and Bonforte would hold Defense and Treasury as well as first. In three cases we had given temporary appointments to the career deputy ministers-Research, Population Management, and Exterior. The men who would hold the posts in the permanent government were all needed for campaigning.

            "Yes, yes, it's your second team. Mmm . . . How about this man Braun?"

            I was considerably surprised. It had been my understanding that Willem would okay the list without comment, but that he might want to chat about other things. I had not been afraid of chatting; a man can get a reputation as a sparkling conversationalist simply by letting the other man do all the talking.

            Lothar Braun was what was known as a "rising young statesman." What I knew about him came from his Farleyfile and from Rog and Bill. He had come up since Bonforte had been turned out of office and so had never had any cabinet post, but had served as caucus sergeant at arms and junior whip. Bill insisted that Bonforte had planned to boost him rapidly and that he should try his wings in the caretaker government; he proposed him for Minister of External Communications.

            Rog Clifton had seemed undecided; he had first put down the name of Angel Jesus de la Tone y Perez, the career subminister. But Bill had pointed out that if Braun flopped, now was a good time to find it out and no harm done. Clifton had given in.

            "Braun?" I answered. "He's a coming young man. Very brilliant."

            Willem made no comment, but looked on down the list. I tried to remember exactly what Bonforte had said about Braun in the Farleyffle. Brilliant . . . hardworking . . . analytical mind. Had he said anything against him? No-well, perhaps-"a shade too affable." That does not condemn a man. But Bonforte had said nothing at all about such affirmative virtues as loyalty and honesty. Which might mean nothing, as the Farleyfile was not a series of character studies; it was a data file.

            The Emperor put the list aside. "Joseph, are you planning to bring the Martian nests into the Empire at once?"

            "Eh? Certainly not before the election, Sire."

            "Come now, you know I was talking about after the election. And have you forgotten how to say 'Willem'? 'Sire' from a man six years older than I am, under these circumstances, is silly."

            "Very well, Willem."

            "We both know I am not supposed to notice politics. But we know also that the assumption is silly. Joseph, you have spent your off years creating a situation in which the nests would wish to come wholly into the Empire." He pointed a thumb at my wand. "I believe you have done it. Now if you win this election you should be able to get the Grand Assembly to grant me permission to proclaim it. Well?"

            I thought about it. "Willem," I said slowly, "you know that is exactly what we have planned to do. You must have some reason for bringing the subject up."

            He swizzled his glass and stared at me, managing to look like a New England groceryman about to tell off one of the summer people. "Are you asking my advice? The constitution requires you to advise me, not the other way around."

            "I welcome your advice, Wilem. I do not promise to follow it."

            He laughed. "You damned seldom promise anything. Very well, let's assume that you win the election and go back into office

-but with a majority so small that you might have difficulty in voting the nests into full citizenship. In such case I would not advise you to make it a vote of confidence. If you lose, take your licking and stay in office; stick the full term."

            "Why, Willem?"

            "Because you and I are patient men. See that?" He pointed at the plaque of his house. "'I Maintain!' It's not a flashy rule but it is not a king's business to be flashy; his business is to conserve, to hang on, to roll with the punch. Now, constitutionally speaking, it should not matter to me whether you stay in office or not. But it does matter to me whether or not the Empire holds together. I think that if you miss on the Martian issue immediately after the election, you can afford to wait-for your other policies are going to prove very popular. You'll pick up votes in by-elections and eventually you'll come around and tell me I can add 'Emperor of Mars' to the list. So don't hurry."

            "I will think about it," I said carefully.

            "Do that. Now how about the transportee system?"

            "We're abolishing it immediately after the election and suspending it at once." I could answer that one firmly; Bonforte hated it.

            "They'll attack you on it."

            "So they will. Let them. We'll pick up votes."

            "Glad to hear that you still have the strength of your convictions, Joseph. I never liked having the banner of Orange on a convict ship. Free trade?"

            "After the election, yes."

            "What are you going to use for revenue?"

            "It is our contention that trade and production will expand so rapidly that other revenues will make up for the loss of the customs."

            "And suppose it ain't so?"

            I had not been given a second-string answer on that one-and economics was largely a mystery to me. I grinned. "Willem, I'll have to have notice on that question. But the whole program of the Expansionist Party is founded on the notion that free trade, free travel, common citizenship, common currency, and a minimum of Imperial laws and restrictions are good not only for the citizens of the Empire but for the Empire itself. If we need the money, we'll find it-but not by chopping the Empire up into tiny bailiwicks." All but the first sentence was pure Bonforte, only slightly adapted.

            "Save your campaign speeches," he grunted. "I simply asked." He picked up the list again. "You're quite sure this line-up is the way you want it?"

            I reached for the list and he handed it to me. Damnation, it was clear that the Emperor was telling me as emphatically as the constitution would let him that, in his opinion, Braun was a wrong 'un. But, hell's best anthracite, I had no business changing the list Bill and Rog had made up.

            On the other hand, it was not Bon forte's list; it was merely what they thought Bonforte would do if he were compos mentis.

            I wished suddenly that I could take time out and ask Penny what she thought of Braun.

            Then I reached for a pen from Willem's desk, scratched out "Braun," and printed in "de la Torre"-in block letters; I still could not risk Bonforte's handwriting. The Emperor merely said, "It looks like a good team to me. Good luck, Joseph. You'll need it."

            That ended the audience as such. I was anxious to get away, but you do not walk out on a king; that is one prerogative they have retained. He wanted to show me his workshop and his new train models. I suppose he has done more to revive that ancient hobby than anyone else; personally I can't see it as an occupation for a grown man. But I made polite noises about his new toy locomotive, intended for the "Royal Scotsman."

            "If I had had the breaks," he said, getting down on his hands and knees and peering into the innards of the toy engine, "I could have been a very fair shop superintendent, I think-a master machinist. But the accident of birth discriminated against me."

            "Do you really think you would have preferred it, Willem?"

            "I don't know. This job I have is not bad. The hours are easy and the pay is good-and the social security is first-rate-barring the outside chance of revolution, and my line has always been lucky on that score. But much of the work is tedious and could be done as well by any second-rate actor." He glanced up at me. "I relieve your office of a lot of tiresome cornerstone-laying and parade-watching, you know."

            "I do know and I appreciate it."

            "Once in a long time I get a chance to give a little push in the right direction-what I think is the right direction. Kinging is a very odd profession, Joseph. Don't ever take it up."

            "I'm afraid it's a bit late, even if I wanted to."

            He made some fine adjustment on the toy. "My real function is to keep you from going crazy."

            "Eh?"

            "Of course. Psychosis-situational is the occupational disease of heads of states. My predecessors in the king trade, the ones who actually ruled, were almost all a bit balmy. And take a look at your American presidents; the job used frequently to kill them in their prime. But me, I don't have to run things; I have a professional like yourself to do it for me. And you don't have the killing pressure either; you, or those in your shoes, can always quit if things get too tough-and the old Emperor-it's almost always the 'old' Emperor; we usually mount the throne about the age other men retire-the Emperor is always there, maintaining continuity, preserving the symbol of the state, while you professionals work out a new deal." He blinked solemnly. "My job is not glamorous, but it is useful."

            Presently he let up on me about his chlldish trains and we went back into his office. I thought I was about to be dismissed. In fact, he said, "I should let you get back to your work. You had a hard trip?"

            "Not too hard. I spent it working."

            "I suppose so. By the way, who are you?"

            There is the policeman's tap on the shoulder, the shock of the top step that is not there, there is falling out of bed, and there is having her husband return home unexpectedly-I would take any combination of those in preference to that simple inquiry. I aged inside to match my appearance and more.

            "Sire?"

            "Come now," he said impatiently, "surely my job carries with it some privileges. Just tell me the truth. I've known for the past hour that you were not Joseph Bonforte-though you could fool his own mother; you even have his mannerisms. But who are you?"

            "My name is Lawrence Smith, Your Majesty," I said faintly.

            "Brace up, man! I could have called the guards long since, if I had been intending to. Were you sent here to assassinate me?"

            "No, Sire. I am-loyal to Your Majesty."

            "You have an odd way of showing it. Well, pour yourself another drink, sit down, and tell me about it."

            I told him about it, every bit. It took more than one drink, and presentiy I felt better. He looked angry when I told him of the kidnapping, but when I told him what they had done to Bonforte's mind his face turned dark with a Jovian rage.

            At last he said quietly, "It's just a matter of days until he is back in shape, then?"

            "So Dr. Capek says."

            "Don't let him go to work until he is fully recovered. He's a valuable man. You know that, don't you? Worth six of you and me. So you carry on with the doubling job and let him get well. The Empire needs him."

            "Yes, Sire."

            "Knock off that 'Sire.' Since you are standing in for him, call me 'Willem,' as he does. Did you know that was how I spotted you?"

            "No, Si-no, Willem."

            "He's called me Willem for twenty years. I thought it decidedly odd that he would quit it in private simply because he was seeing me on state business. But I did not suspect, not really. But, remarkable as your performance was, it set me thinking. Then when we went in to see the trains, I knew."

            "Excuse me? How?"

            "You were polite, man! I've made him look at my trains in the past-and he always got even by being as rude as possible about what a way for a grown man to waste time. It was a little act we always went through. We both enjoyed it."

            "Oh. I didn't know."

            "How could you have known?" I was thinking that I should have known, that damned Farleyfile should have told me . . . It was not until later that I realized that the file had not been defective, in view of the theory on which it was based, i.e. it was intended to let a famous man remember details about the less famous. But that was precisely what the Emperor was not-less famous, I mean. Of course Bonforte needed no notes to recall personal details about Willem! Nor would he consider it proper to set down personal matters about the sovereign in a file handled by his clerks.

            I had muffed the obvious-not that I see how I could have avoided it, even ii I had realized that the file would be incomplete.

            But the Emperor was still talking. "You did a magnificent job- and after risking your life in a Martian nest I am not surprised that you were willing to tackle me. Tell me, have I ever seen you in stereo, or anywhere?"

            I had given my legal name, of course, when the Emperor demanded it; I now rather timidly gave my professional name. He looked at me, threw up his hands, and guff awed. I was somewhat hurt. "Er, have you heard of me?"

            "Heard of you? I'm one of your staunchest fans." He looked at me very closely. "But you still look like Joe Bonforte. I can't believe that you are Lorenzo."

            "But I am."

            "Oh, I believe it, I believe it. You know that skit where you are a tramp? First you try to milk a cow-no luck. Finally you end up eating out of the cat's dish-but even the cat pushes you away?"

            I admitted it.

            "I've almost worn out my spool of that. I laugh and cry at the same time."

            "That is the idea." I hesitated, then admitted that the barnyard "Weary Willie" routine had been copied from a very great artist of another century. "But I prefer dramatic roles."

            "Like this one?"

            "Well-not exactly. For this role, once is quite enough. I wouldn't care for a long run."

            "I suppose so. Well, tell Roger Clifton- No, don't tell Clifton anything. Lorenzo, I see nothing to be gained by ever telling anyone about our conversation this past hour. If you tell Clifton, even though you tell him that I said not to worry, it would just give him nerves. And he has work to do. So we keep it tight, eh?"

            "As my emperor wishes."

            "None of that, please. We'll keep it quiet because it's best so. Sorry I can't make a sickbed visit on Uncle Joe. Not that I could help him-although they used to think the King's Touch did marvels. So we'll say nothing and pretend that I never twigged."

            "Yes-Wilem."

            "I suppose you had better go now. I've kept you a very long time."

            "Whatever you wish."

            "I'll have Pateel go back with you-or do you know your way around? But just a moment-" He dug around in his desk, muttering to himself. "That girl must have been straightening things again. No-here it is." He hauled out a little book. "I probably won't get to see you again-so would you mind giving me your autograph before you go?"

Chapter 9

            Rog and Bill I found chewing their nails in Bonforte's upper living room. The second I showed up Corpsman started toward me. "Where the hell have you been?"

            "With the Emperor," I answered coldly.

            "You've been gone five or six times as long as you should have been."

            I did not bother to answer. Since the argument over the speech Corpsman and I had gotten along together and worked together, but it was strictly a marriage of convenience, with no love. We cooperated, but we did not really bury the hatchet-unless it was between my shoulder blades. I had made no special effort to conciliate him and saw no reason why I should-in my opinion his parents had met briefly at a masquerade ball.

            I don't believe in rowing with other members of the company, but the only behavior Corpsman would willingly accept from me was that of a servant, hat in hand and very 'umble, sir. I would not give him that, even to keep peace. I was a professional, retained to do a very difficult professional job, and professional men do not use the back stairs; they are treated with respect.

            So I ignored him and asked Rog, "Where's Penny?"

            "With him. So are Dak and Do; at the moment."

            "He's here?"

            "Yes." Clifton hesitated. "We put him in what is supposed to be the wife's room of your bedroom suite. It was the only place where we could maintain utter privacy and still give him the care he needs. I hope you don't mind."

            "Not at all."

            "It won't inconvenience you. The two bedrooms are joined, you may have noticed, only through the dressing rooms, and we've shut off that door. It's soundproof."

            "Sounds like a good arrangement. How is he?"

            Clifton frowned. "Better, much better-on the whole. He is lucid much of the time." He hesitated. "You can go in and see him, if you like."

            I hesitated still longer. "How soon does Dr. Capek think he will be ready to make public appearances?"

            "It's hard to say. Before long."

            "How long? Three or four days? A short enough time that we could cancel all appointments and just put me out of sight? Rog, I don't know just how to make this clear but, much as I would like to call on him and pay my respects, I don't think it is smart for me to see him at all until after I have made my last appearance. It might well ruin my characterization." I had made the terrible mistake of going to my father's funeral; for years thereafter when I thought of him I saw him dead in his coffin. Only very slowly did I regain the true image of him-the virile, dominant man who had reared me with a firm hand and taught me my trade. I was afraid of something like that with Bonforte; I was now impersonating a well man at the height of his powers, the way I had seen him and heard him in the many stereo records of him. I was very much afraid that if I saw him ill, the recollection of it would blur and distort my performance.

            "I was not insisting," Clifton answered. "You know best. It's possible that we can keep from having you appear in public again, but I want to keep you standing by and ready until he is fully recovered."

            I almost said that the Emperor wanted it done that way. But I caught myself-the shock of having the Emperor find me out had shaken me a little out of character. But the thought reminded me of unfinished business. I took out the revised cabinet list and handed it to Corpsman. "Here's the approved roster for the news services, Bill. You'll see that there is one change on it-De la Torre for Braun."

"What?"

            "Jesus de Ia Tone for Lothar Braun. That's the way the Emperor wanted it."

            Clifton looked astonished; Corpsman looked both astonished and angry. "What difference does that make? He's got no goddamn right to have opinions!"

            Clifton said slowly, "Bill is fight, Chief. As a lawyer who has specialized in constitutional law I assure you that the sovereign's confirmation is purely nominal. You should not have let him make any changes."

            I felt like shouting at them, and only the imposed calm personality of Bonforte kept me from it. I had had a hard day and, despite a brilliant performance, the inevitable disaster had overtaken me. I wanted to tell Rog that if Willem had not been a really big man, kingly in the fine sense of the word, we would all be in the soup-simply because I had not been adequately coached for the role. Instead I answered sourly, "It's done and that's that."

            Corpsman said, "That's what you think! I gave out the correct list to the reporters two hours ago. Now you've got to go back and straighten it out. Rog, you had better call the Palace right away and-"

            I said, "Quiet!"

            Corpsman shut up. I went on in a lower key. "Rog, from a legal point of view, you may be right. I wouldn't know. I do know that the Emperor felt free to question the appointment of Braun. Now if either one of you wants to go to the Emperor and argue with him, that's up to you. But I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to get out of this anachronistic strait jacket, take my shoes off, and have a long, tall drink. Then rm going to bed."

            "Now wait, Chief," Clifton objected. "You've got a five-minute spot on grand network to announce the new cabinet."

            "You take it. You're first deputy in this cabinet."

            He blinked. "All right."

            Corpsman said insistently, "How about Braun? He was promised the job."

            Clifton looked at him thoughtfully. "Not in any dispatch that I saw, Bill. He was simply asked if he was willing to serve, like all the others. Is that what you meant?"

            Corpsman hesitated like an actor not quite sure of his lines. "Of course. But it amounts to a promise."

            "Not until the public announcement is made, it doesn't."

            "But the announcement was made, I tell you. Two hours ago."

            "Mmm ... Bill, I'm afraid that you will have to call the boys in again and tell them that you made a mistake. Or I'll call them in and tell them that through an error a preliminary list was handed out before Mr. Bonforte had okayed it. But we've got to correct it before the grand network announcement."

            "Do you mean to tell me you are going to let him get away with it?"

            By "him" I think Bill meant me rather than Willem, but Rog's answer assumed the contrary. "Yes. Bill, this is no time to force a constitutional crisis. The issue isn't worth it. So will you phrase the retraction? Or shall I?"

            Corpsman's expression reminded me of the way a cat submits to the inevitable-"just barely." He looked grim, shrugged, and said, "I'll do it. I want to be damned sure it is phrased properly, so we can salvage as much as possible out of the shambles."

            "Thanks, Bill," Rog answered mildly.

            Corpsman turned to leave. I called out, "Bill! As long as you are going to be talking to the news service I have another announcement for them."

            "Huh? What are you after now?"

            "Nothing much." The fact was I was suddenly overcome with weariness at the role and the tensions it created. "Just tell them that Mr. Bonforte has a cold and his physician has ordered him to bed for a rest. I've had a bellyful."

            Corpsman snorted. "I think I'll make it 'pneumonia."

            "Suit yourself."

            When he had gone Rog turned to me and said, "Don't let it get you, Chief. In this business some days are better than others."

            "Rog, I really am going on the sick list. You can mention it on stereo tonight."

            "So?"

            "I'm going to take to my bed and stay there. There is no reason at all why Bonforte can't 'have a cold' until he is ready to get back into harness himself. Every time I make an appearance it just increases the probability that somebody will spot something wrong- and every time I do make an appearance that sorehead Corpsman finds something to yap about. An artist can't do his best work with somebody continually snarling at him. So let's let it go at this and ring down the curtain."

            "Take it easy, Chief. I'll keep Corpsman out of your hair from now on. Here we won't be in each other's laps the way we were in the ship."

            "No, Rog, my mind is made up. Oh, I won't run out on you. I'll stay here until Mr. B. is able to see people, in case some utter emergency turns up"-I was recalling uneasily that the Emperor had told me to hang on and had assumed that I would-"but it is actually better to keep me out of sight. At the moment we have gotten away with it completely, haven't we? Oh, they know- somebody knows-that Bonforte was not the man who went through the adoption ceremony-but they don't dare raise that issue, nor could they prove it if they did. The same people may suspect that a double was used today, but they don't know, they can't be sure-because it is always possible that Bonforte recovered quickly enough to carry it off today. Right?"

            Clifton got an odd, half-sheepish look on his face. "I'm afraid they are fairly sure you were a double, Chief."

            "Eh?"

            "We shaded the truth a little to keep you from being nervous. Doc Capek was certain from the time he first examined him that only a miracle could get him in shape to make the audience today. The people who dosed him would know that too."

            I frowned. "Then you were kidding me earlier when you told me how well he was doing? How is he, Rog? Tell me the truth."

            "I was telling you the truth that time, Chief. That's why I suggested that you see him-whereas before I was only too glad to string along with your reluctance to see him." He added, "Perhaps you had better see him, talk with him."

            "Mmm-no." The reasons for not seeing him still applied; if I did have to make another appearance I did not want my subconscious playing me tricks. The role called for a well man. "But, Rog, everything I said applies still more emphatically on the basis of what you have just told me. If they are even reasonably sure that a double was used today, then we don't dare risk another appearance. They were caught by surprise today-or perhaps it was impossible to unmask me, under the circumstances. But it will not be later. They can rig some deadfall, some test that I can't pass- then blooey/ There goes the old ball game." I thought about it. "I had better be 'sick' as long as necessary. Bill was right; it had better be 'pneumonia.'"

            Such is the power of suggestion that I woke up the next morning with a stopped-up nose and a sore throat. Dr. Capek took time to dose me and I felt almost human by suppertime; nevertheless, he issued bulletins about "Mr. Bonforte's virus infection." The sealed and air-conditioned cities of the Moon being what they are, nobody was anxious to be exposed to an S-vectored ailment; no determined effort was made to get past my chaperones. For four days I loafed and read from Bonforte's library, both his own collected papers and his many books . . . I discovered that both politics and economics could make engrossing reading; those subjects had never been real to me before. The Emperor sent me flowers from the royal greenhouse-or were they for me?

            Never mind. I loafed and soaked in the luxury of being Lorenzo, or even plain Lawrence Smith. I found that I dropped back into character automatically if someone came in, but I can't help that. It was not necessary; I saw no one but Penny and Capek, except for one visit from Dak.

            But even lotus-eating can pall. By the fourth day I was as tired of that room as I had ever been of a producer's waiting room and I was lonely. No one bothered with me; Capek's visits had been brisk and professional, and Penny's visits had been short and few. She had stopped calling me "Mr. Bonforte."

            When Dak showed up I was delighted to see him. "Dak! What's new?"

            "Not much. I've been trying to get the Tommie overhauled with one hand while helping Rog with political chores with the other. Getting this campaign lined up is going to give him ulcers, three gets you eight." He sat down. "Politics!"

            "Hmm - . . Dak, how did you ever get into it? Offhand, I would figure voyageurs to be as unpolitical as actors. And you in particular."

            "They are and they aren't. Most ways they don't give a damn whether school keeps ot not, as long as they can keep on herding junk through the sky. But to do that you've got to have cargo, and cargo means trade, and profitable trade means wide-open trade, with any ship free to go anywhere, no customs nonsense and no restricted areas. Freedom! And there you are; you're in politics. As for myself, I came here first for a spot of lobbying for the 'continuous voyage' rule, so that goods on the triangular trade would not pay two duties. It was Mr. B's bill, of course. One thing led to another and here I am, skipper of his yacht the past six years and representing my guild brothers since the last general election." He sighed. "I hardly know how it happened myself."

            "I suppose you are anxious to get out of it. Are you going to stand for re-election?"

            He stared at me. "Huh? Brother, until you've been in politics you haven't been alive."

            "But you said-"

            "I know what I said. It's rough and sometimes it's dirty and it's always hard work and tedious details. But it's the only sport for grownups. All other games are for kids. All of 'em." He stood up. "Gotta run."

            "Oh, stick around."

            "Can't. With the Grand Assembly convening tomorrow I've got to give Rog a hand. I shouldn't have stopped in at all."

            "It is? I didn't know." I was aware that the G.A., the outgoing G.A. that is, had to meet one more time, to accept the caretaker cabinet. But I had not thought about it. It was a routine matter, as perfunctory as presenting the list to the Emperor. "Is he going to be able to make it?"

            "No. But don't you worry about it. Rog will apologize to the house for your-I mean his-absence and will ask for a proxy rule under no-objection procedure. Then he will read the speech of the Supreme Minister Designate-Bill is working on it right now. Then in his own person he will move that the government be confirmed. Second. No debate. Pass. Adjourn sine die-and everybody rushes for home and starts promising the voters two women in every bed and a hundred Imperials every Monday morning. Routine." He added, "Oh yes! Some member of the Humanity Party will move a resolution of sympathy and a basket of flowers, which will pass in a fine hypocritical glow. They'd rather send flowers to Bonforte's funeral." He scowled.

            "It is actually as simple as that? What would happen if the proxy rule were refused? I thought the Grand Assembly didn't recognize proxies."

            "They don't, for all ordinary procedure. You either pair, or you show up and vote. But this is just the idler wheels going around in parliamentary machinery. If they don't let him appear by proxy tomorrow, then they've got to wait around until he is well before they can adjourn sine die and get on with the serious business of hypnotizing the voters. As it is, a mock quorum has been meeting daily and adjourning ever since Quiroga resigned. This Assembly is as dead as Caesar's ghost, but it has to be buried constitutionally."

            "Yes-but suppose some idiot did object?"

            "No one will. Oh, it could force a constitutional crisis. But it won't happen."

            Neither one of us said anything for a while. Dak made no move to leave. "Dak, would it make things easier if I showed up and gave that speech?"

            "Huh? Shucks, I thought that was settled. You decided that it wasn't safe to risk another appearance short of an utter save-the-baby emergency. On the whole, I agree with you. There's the old saw about the pitcher and the well."

            "Yes. But this is just a walk-through, isn't it? Lines as fixed as a play? Would there be any chance of anyone puffing any surprises on me that I couldn't handle?"

            "Well, no. Ordinarily you would be expected to talk to the press afterwards, but your recent illness is an excuse. We could slide you through the security tunnel and avoid them entirely." He smiled grimly. "Of course, there is always the chance that some crackpot in the visitors' gallery has managed to sneak in a gun...Mr. B. always referred to it as the 'shooting gallery' after they winged him from it."

            My leg gave a sudden twinge. "Are you trying to scare me off?"

            "You pick a funny way to encourage me. Dak, be level with me. Do you want me to do this job tomorrow? Or don't you?"

            "Of course I do! Why the devil do you think I stopped in on a busy day? Just to chat?"

            The Speaker pro tempore banged his gavel, the chaplain gave an invocation that carefully avoided any differences between one religion and another-and everyone kept silent. The seats themselves were only half filled but the gallery was packed with tourists.

            We heard the ceremonial knocking amplified over the speaker system; the Sergeant at Arms rushed the mace to the door. Three times the Emperor demanded to be admitted, three times he was refused. Then he prayed the privilege; it was granted by acclamation. We stood while Willem entered and took his seat back of the Speaker's desk. He was in uniform as Admiral General and was unattended, as was required, save by escort of the Speaker and the Sergeant at Arms.

            Then I tucked my wand under my arm and stood up at my place at the front bench and, addressing the Speaker as if the sovereign were not present, I delivered my speech. It was not the one Corpsman had written; that one went down the oubliette as soon as I had read it. Bill had made it a straight campaign speech, and it was the wrong time and place.

            Mine was short, non-partisan, and cribbed right straight out of Bonforte's collected writings, a paraphrase of the one the time before when he formed a caretaker government. I stood foursquare for good roads and good weather and wished that everybody would love everybody else, just the way all us good democrats loved our sovereign and he loved us. It was a blank-verse lyric poem of about five hundred words and if I varied from Bonforte's earlier speech then I simply went up on my lines.

            They had to quiet the gallery.

            Rog got up and moved that the names I had mentioned in passing be confirmed-second and no objection and the clerk cast a white ballot As I marched forward, attended by one member of my own party and one member of the opposition, I could see members glancing at their watches and wondering if they could still catch the noon shuttle.

            Then I was swearing allegiance to my sovereign, under and subject to the constitutional limitations, swearing to defend and continue the rights and privileges of the Grand Assembly, and to protect the freedoms of the citizens of the Empire wherever they might be-and incidentally to carry out the duties of His Majesty's Supreme Minister. The chaplain mixed up the words once, but I straightened him out.

            I thought I was breezing through it as easy as a curtain speech- when I found that I was crying so hard that I could hardly see. When I was done, Willem said quietly to me, "A good performance, Joseph." I don't know whether he thought he was talking to me or to his old friend-and I did not care. I did not wipe away the tears; I just let them drip as I turned back to the Assembly. I waited for Willem to leave, then adjourned them.

            Diana, Ltd., ran four extra shuttles that afternoon. New Batavia was deserted-that is to say there were only the court and a million or so butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, and civil servants left in town-and a skeleton cabinet.

            Having gotten over my "cold" and appeared publicly in the Grand Assembly Hall, it no longer made sense to hide out. As the supposed Supreme Minister I could not, without causing comment, never be seen; as the nominal head of a political party entering a campaign for a general election I had to see people-some people, at least. So I did what I had to do and got a daily report on Bonforte's progress toward complete recovery. His progress was good, if slow; Capek reported that it was possible, if absolutely necessary, to let him appear any time now-but he advised against it; he had lost almost twenty pounds and his co-ordination was poor.

            Rog did everything possible to protect both of us. Mr. Bonforte knew now that they were using a double for him and, after a first fit of indignation, had relaxed to necessity and approved it. Rog ran the campaign, consulting him only on matters of high policy, and then passing on his answers to me to hand out publicly when necessary.

            But the protection given me was almost as great; I was as hard to see as a topflight agent. My office ran on into the mountain beyond the opposition leader's apartments (we did not move over into the Supreme Minister's more palatial quarters; while it would have been legal, it just "was not done" during a caretaker regime)

-they could be reached from the rear directly from the lower living room, but to get at me from the public entrance a man had to pass about five check points-except for the favored few who were conducted directly by Rog through a bypass tunnel to Penny's office and from there into mine.

            The setup meant that I could study the Farleyfile on anyone before he got to see me. I could even keep it in front of me while he was with me, for the desk had a recessed viewer the visitor could not see, yet I could wipe it out instantly if he turned out to be a floor pacer. The viewer had other uses; Rog could give a visitor the special treatment, rushing him right in to see me, leave him alone with me-and stop in Penny's office and write me a note, which would then be projected on the viewer-such quick tips as, "Kiss him to death and promise nothing," or, "All he really wants is for his wile to be presented at court. Promise him that and get rid of him," or even, "Easy on this one. It's a 'swing' district and he is smarter than he looks. Turn him over to me and I'll dicker."

            I don't know who ran the government. The senior career men, probably. There would be a stack of papers on my desk each morning, I would sign Bonforte's sloppy signature to them, and Penny would take them away. I never had time to read them. The very size of the Imperial machinery dismayed me. Once when we had to attend a meeting outside the offices, Penny had led me on what she called a short cut though the Archives-miles on miles of endless ifies, each one chockablock with microfilm and all of them with moving belts scooting past them so that a clerk would not take all day to fetch one ifie.

            But Penny told me that she had taken me through only one wing of it. The file of the files, she said, occupied a cavern the size of the Grand Assembly Hall. It made me glad that government was not a career with me, but merely a passing hobby, so to speak.

            Seeing people was an unavoidable chore, largely useless since Rog, or Bonforte through Rog, made the decisions. My real job was to make campaign speeches. A discreet rumor had been spread that my doctor had been afraid that my heart had been strained by the "virus infection" and had advised me to stay in the low gravity of the Moon throughout the campaign. I did not dare risk taking the impersonation on a tour of Earth, much less make a trip to Venus; the Farleyfile system would break down if I attempted to mix with crowds, not to mention the unknown hazards of the Actionist goon squads-what I would babble with a minim dose of neodexocaine in the forebrain none of us liked to think about, me least of all.

            Quiroga was hitting all continents on Earth, making his stereo appearances as personal appearances on platforms in front of crowds. But it did not worry Rog Clifton. He shrugged and said, "Let him. There are no new votes to be picked up by personal appearances at political rallies. All it does is wear out the speaker. Those rallies are attended only by the faithful."

            I hoped that he knew what he was talking about. The campaign was short, only six weeks from Quiroga's resignation to the day he had set for the election before resigning, and I was speaking almost every day, either on a grand network with time shared precisely with the Humanity Party, or speeches canned and sent by shuttle for later release to particular audiences. We had a set routine; a draft would come to me, perhaps from Bill although I never saw him, and then I would rework it. Rog would take the revised draft away; usually it would come back approved-and once in a while there would be corrections made in Bonforte's handwriting, now so sloppy as to be almost illegible.

            I never ad-libbed at all on those parts he corrected, though I often did on the rest-when you get rolling there is often a better, more alive way to say a thing. I began to notice the nature of his corrections; they were almost always eliminations of qualifiers- make it blunter, let 'em like it or lump it!

            After a while there were fewer corrections. I was getting with it.

            I still never saw him. I felt that I could not "wear his head" if I looked at him on his sickbed. But I was not the only one of his intimate family who was not seeing him; Capek had chucked Penny out-for her own good. I did not know it at the time. I did know that Penny had become irritable, absent-minded, and moody after we reached New Batavia. She got circles under her eyes like a raccoon-all of which I could not miss, but I attributed it to the pressure of the campaign combined with worry about Bonforte's health. I was only partly right. Capek spotted it and took action, put her under llght hypnosis and asked her questions-then he flatly forbade her to see Bonforte again until I was done and finished and shipped away.

            The poor girl was going almost out of her mind from visiting the sickroom of the man she hopelessly loved-then going straight in to work closely with a man who looked and talked and sounded just like him, but in good health. She was probably beginning to hate me.

            Good old Doc Capek got at the root of her trouble, gave her helpful and soothing post-hypnotic suggestions, and kept her out of the sickroom after that. Naturally I was not told about it at the time; it wasn't any of my business. But Penny perked up and again was her lovable, incredibly efficient self.

            It made a lot of difference to me. Let's admit it; at least twice I would have walked out on the whole incredible rat race if it had not been for Penny.

            There was one sort of meeting I had to attend, that of the campaign executive committee. Since the Expansionist Party was a minority party, being merely the largest fraction of a coalition of several parties held together by the leadership and personality of John Joseph Bonforte, I had to stand in for him and peddle soothing syrup to those prima donnas. I was briefed for it with painstaking care, and Rog sat beside rue and could hint the proper direction if I faltered. But it could not be delegated.

            Less than two weeks before election day we were due for a meeting at which the safe districts would be parceled out. The organization always had thirty to forty districts which could be used to make someone eligible for cabinet office, or to provide for a political secretary (a person like Penny was much more valuable if he or she was fully qualified, able to move and Speak on the floor of the Assembly, had the right to be present at closed caucuses, and so forth), or for other party reasons. Bonforte himself represented a "safe" district; it relieved him from the necessity of precinct campaigning. Clifton had another. Dak would have had one if he had needed it, but he actually commanded the support of his guild brethren. Rog even hinted to me once that if I wanted to come back in my proper person, I could say the word and my name would go on the next list.

            Some of the spots were always saved for party wheel horses willing to resign at a moment's notice and thereby provide the Party with a place through a by-election if it proved necessary to qualify a man for cabinet office, or something.

            But the whole thing had somewhat the flavor of patronage and, the coalition being what it was, it was necessary for Bonforte to straighten out conilicting claims and submit a list to the campaign executive committee. It was a last-minute job, to be done just before the ballots were prepared, to allow for late changes.

            When Rog and Dak came in I was working on a speech and had told Penny to hold off anything but five-alarm fires. Quiroga had made a wild statement in Sydney, Australia, the night before, of such a nature that we could expose the lie and make him squirm. I was trying my hand at a Speech in answer, without waiting for a draft to be handed me; I had high hopes of getting my own version approved.

            When they came in I said, "Listen to this," and read them the key paragraph. "How do you like it?"

            "That ought to nail his hide to the door," agreed Rog. "Here's the 'safe' list, Chief. Want to look it over? We're due there in twenty minutes."

            "Oh, that damned meeting. I don't see why I should look at the list. Anything you want to tell me about it?" Nevertheless, I took the list and glanced down it. I knew them all from their Farleyfiles and a few of them from contact; I knew already why each one had to be taken care of.

            Then I struck the name: Corpsman, William 1.

            I fought down what I felt was justifiable annoyance and said quietly, "I see Bill is on the list, Rog."

            "Oh, yes. I wanted to tell you about that. You see, Chief, as we all know, there has been a certain amount of bad blood between you and Bill. Now I'm not blaming you; it's been Bill's fault. But there are always two sides. What you may not have realized is that Bill has been carrying around a tremendous inferiority feeling; it gives him a chip on the shoulder. This will fix it up."

            "So?"

            "Yes. It is what he has always wanted. You see, the rest of us all have official status, we're members of the G.A., I mean. I'm talking about those who work closely around, uh, you. Bill feels it. I've heard him say, after the third drink, that he was just a hired man. He's bitter about it. You don't mind, do you? The Party can afford it and it's an easy price to pay for elimination of friction at headquarters."

            I had myself under full control by now. "It's none of my business. Why should I mind, if that is what Mi. Bonforte wants?"

            I caught just a flicker of a glance from Dak to Clifton. I added, "That is what Mr. B. wants? Isn't it, Rog?"

            Dak said harshly, "Tell him, Rog."

            Rog said slowly, "Dak and I whipped this up ourselves. We think it is for the best."

            "Then Mr. Bonforte did not approve it? You asked him, surely?"

            "No, we didn't."

            "Why not?"

            "Chief, this is not the sort of thing to bother him with. He's a tired, old, sick man. I have not been worrying him with anything less than major policy decisions-which this isn't. It is a district we command no matter who stands for it."

            "Then why ask my opinion about it at all?"

            "Well, we felt you should know-and know why. We think you ought to approve it."

            "Me? You're asking me for a decision as if I were Mr. Bonforte. I'm not." I tapped the desk in his nervous gesture. "Either this decision is at his level, and you should ask him-or it's not, and you should never have asked me."

            Rog chewed his cigar, then said, "All right, I'm not asking you."

"No!"

            "What do you mean?"

            "I mean 'NoV You did ask me; therefore there is doubt in your mind. So if you expect me to present that name to the committee- as 1/I were Bonforte-then go in and ask him."

            They both sat and said nothing. Finally Dak sighed and said, "Tell the rest, Rog. Or I will."

            I waited. Clifton took his cigar out of his mouth and said, "Chief, Mi. Bonforte had a stroke four days ago. He's in no shape to be disturbed."

            I held still, and recited to myself all of "the cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces," and so forth. When I was back in shape I said, "How is his mind?"

            "His mind seems clear enough, but he is terribly tired. That week as a prisoner was more of an ordeal than we realized. The stroke left him in a coma for twenty-four hours. He's out of it now, but the left side of his face is paralyzed and his entire left side is partly out of service."

            "Uh, what does Dr. Capek say?"

            "He thinks that as the clot clears up, you'll never be able to tell the difference. But he'll have to take it easier than he used to. But, Chief, right now he is ill. We'll just have to carry on through the balance of the campaign without him."

            I felt a ghost of the lost feeling I had had when my father died. I had never seen Bonforte, I had had nothing from him but a few scrawled corrections on typescript. But I leaned on him all the way. The fact that he was in that room next door had made the whole thing possible.

            I took a long breath, let it out, and said, "Okay, Rog. We'll have to."

            "Yes, Chief." He stood up. "We've got to get over to that meeting. How about that?" He nodded toward the safe-districts list.

            "Oh." I tried to think. Maybe it was possible that Bonforte would reward Bill with the privilege of calling himself "the Honorable," just to keep him happy. He wasn't small about such things; he did not bind the mouths of the kine who tread the grain. In one of his essays on politics he had said, "I am not an intellectual man. If I have any special talent, it lies in picking men of ability and letting them work."

            "How long has Bill been with him?" I asked suddenly.

            "Eh? About four years. A llttle over."

            Bonforte evidently had liked his work. "That's past one general election, isn't it? Why didn't he make him an Assemblyman then?"

            "Why, I don't know. The matter never came up."

            "When was Penny put in?"

            "About three years ago. A by-election."

            "There's your answer, Rog."

            "I don't follow you."

            "Bonforte could have made Bill a Grand Assemblyman at any time. He didn't choose to. Change that nomination to a 'resigner.' Then if Mr. Bonforte wants Bill to have it, he can arrange a byelection for him later-when he's feeling himself."

            Clifton showed no expression. He simply picked up the list and said, "Very well, Chief."

            Later that same day Bill quit. I suppose Rog had to tell him that his arm-twisting had not worked. But when Rog told me about it I felt sick, realizing that my stiff-necked attitude had us all in acute danger. I told him so. He shook his head.

            "But he knows it all! It was his scheme from the start. Look at the load of dirt he can haul over to the Humanity camp."

            "Forget it, Chief. Bill may be a louse-I've no use for a man who will quit in the middle of a campaign; you just don't do that, ever. But he is not a rat. In his profession you don't spill a client's secrets, even if you fall out with him."

            "I hope you are right."

            "You'll see. Don't worry about it. Just get on with the job."

            As the next few days passed I came to the conclusion that Rog knew Bill better than I did. We heard nothing from him or about him and the campaign went ahead as usual, getting rougher all the time, but with not a peep to show that our giant hoax was compromised. I began to feel better and buckled down to making the best Bonforte speeches I could manage-sometimes with Rog's help; sometimes just with his okay. Mr. Bonforte was steadily improving again, but Capek had him on absolute quiet.

            Rog had to go to Earth during the last week; there are types of fence-mending that simply can't be done by remote control. After all, votes come from the precincts and the field managers count for more than the speechmakers. But speeches still had to be made and press conferences given; I carried on, with Dak and Penny at my elbow-of course I was much more closely with it now; most questions I could answer without stopping to think.

            There was the usual twice-weekly press conference in the offices the day Rog was due back. I had been hoping that he would be back in time for it, but there was no reason I could not take it alone. Penny walked in ahead of me, carrying her gear; I heard her gasp.

            I saw then that Bill was at the far end of the table.

            But I looked around the room as usual and said, "Good morning, gentlemen."

            "Good morning, Mr. Minister!" most of them answered.

            I added, "Good morning, Bill. Didn't know you were here. Whom are you representing?"

            They gave him dead silence to reply. Every one of them knew that Bill had quit us-or had been fired. He grinned at me, and answered, "Good morning, Mister Bon forte. I'm with the Krein Syndicate."

            I knew it was coming then; I tried not to give him the satisfaction of letting it show. "A fine outfit. I hope they are paying you what you are worth. Now to business- The written questions first. You have them, Penny?"

            I went rapidly through the written questions, giving out answers I had already had time to think over, then sat back as usual and said, "We have time to bat it around a bit, gentlemen. Any other questions?"

            There were several. I was forced to answer "No comment" only once-an answer Bonforte preferred to an ambiguous one. Finally I glanced at my watch and said, "That will be all this morning, gentlemen," and started to stand up.

            "Smythe!" Bill shouted.

            I kept right on getting to my feet, did not look toward him.

            "I mean you, Mr. Phony Bonforte-Smythe!" he went on angrily, raising his voice still more.

            This time I did look at him, with astonishment-just the amount appropriate, I think, to an important official subjected to rudeness under unlikely conditions. Bill was pointing at me and his face was red. "You impostor! You small-time actor! You fraud!"

            The London Times man on my right said quietly, "Do you want me to call the guard, sir?"

            I said, "No. He's harmless."

            Bill laughed. "So I'm harmless, huh? You'll find out."

            "I really think I should, sir," the Times man insisted.

            "No." I then said sharply, "That's enough, Bill. You had better leave quietly."

            "Don't you wish I would?" He started spewing forth the basic story, talking rapidly. He made no mention of the kidnaping and did not mention his own part in the hoax, but implied that he had left us rather than be mixed up in any such swindle. The impersonation was attributed, correctly as far as it went, to illness on the part of Bonforte-with a strong hint that we might have doped him.

            I listened patiently. Most of the reporters simply listened at first, with that stunned expression of outsiders exposed unwillingly to a vicious family argument. Then some of them started scribbling or dictating into minicorders.

            When he stopped I said, "Axe you through, Bill?"

            "That's enough, isn't it?"

            "More than enough. I'm sorry, Bill. That's all, gentlemen. I must get back to work."

            "Just a moment, Mr. Minister!" someone called out. "Do you want to issue a denial?" Someone else added, "Axe you going to sue?"

            I answered the latter question first. "No, I shan't sue. One doesn't sue a sick man."

            "Sick, am I?" shouted Bill.

            "Quiet down, Bill. As for issuing a denial, I hardly think it is called for. However, I see that some of you have been taking notes. While I doubt if any of your publishers would run this story, if they do, this anecdote may add something to it. Did you ever hear of the professor who spent forty years of his life proving that the Odyssey was not written by Homer-but by another Greek of the same name?"

            It got a polite laugh. I smiled and started to turn away again. Bill came rushing around the table and grabbed at my arm. "You can't laugh it off!" The Times man-Mr. Ackroyd, it was-pulled him away from me.

            I said, "Thank you, sir." Then to Corpsman I added, "What do you want me to do, Bill? I've tried to avoid having you arrested."

            "Call the guards if you like, you phony! We'll see who stays in jail longest! Wait until they take your fingerprints!"

            I sighed and made the understatement of my life. "This is ceasing to be a joke. Gentlemen, I think I had better put an end to this. Penny my dear, will you please have someone send in fingerprinting equipment?" I knew I was sunk-but, damn it, if you are caught by the Birkenhead Drill, the least you owe yourself is to stand at attention while the ship goes down. Even a villain should make a good exit.

            Bill did not wait. He grabbed the water glass that had been sitting in front of me; I had handled it several times. "The hell with that! This will do."

            "I've told you before, Bill, to mind your language in the presence of ladies. But you may keep the glass."

            "You're bloody well right I'll keep it."

            "Very well. Please leave. If not, I'll be forced to summon the guard."

            He walked out. Nobody said anything. I said, "May I provide fingerprints for any of the rest of you?"

            Ackroyd said hastily, "Oh, I'm sure we don't want them, Mr. Minister."

            "Oh, by all means! If there is a story in this, you'll want to be covered." I insisted because it was in character-and in the second and third place, you can't be a little bit pregnant, or slightly unmasked-and I did not want my friends present to be scooped by Bill; it was the last thing I could do for them.

            We did not have to send for formal equipment. Penny had carbon sheets and someone had one of those lifetime memo pads with plastic sheets; they took prints nicely. Then I said good morning and left.

            We got as far as Penny's private office; once inside she fainted dead. I carried her into my office, laid her on the couch, then sat down at my desk and simply shook for several minutes.

            Neither one of us was worth much the rest of the day. We carried on as usual except that Penny brushed off all callers, claiming excuses of some sort. I was due to make a speech that night and thought seriously of canceling it. But I left the news turned on all day and there was not a word about the incident of that morning. I realized that they were checking the prints before risking it-after all, I was supposed to be His Imperial Majesty's first minister; they would want confirmation. So I decided to make the speech since I had already written it and the time was schedtiled. I couldn't even consult Dak; he was away in Tycho City.

            It was the best one I had made. I put into it the same stuff a comic uses to quiet a panic in a burning theater. After the pickup was dead I just sunk my face in my hands and wept, while Penny patted my shoulder. We had not discussed the horrible mess at all.

            Rog grounded at twenty hundred Greenwich, about as I finished, and checked in with me as soon as he was back. In a dull monotone I told him the whole dirty story; he listened, chewing on a dead cigar, his face expressionless.

            At the end I said almost pleadingly, "I had to give the fingerprints, Rog. You see that, don't you? To refuse would not have been in character."

            Rog said, "Don't worry."

            "Huh?"

            "I said, 'Don't worry.' When the reports on those prints come back from the Identification Bureau at The Hague, you are in for a small but pleasant surprise-and our ex-friend Bill is in for a much bigger one, but not pleasant. If he has collected any of his blood money in advance, they will probably take it out of his hide. I hope they do."

            I could not mistake what he meant. "Oh! But, Rog-they won't stop there. There are a dozen other places. Social Security

Uh, lots of places."

            "You think perhaps we were not thorough? Chief, I knew this could happen, one way or another. From the moment Dak sent word to complete Plan Mardi Gras, the necessary cover-up started. Everywhere. But I didn't think it necessary to tell Bill." He sucked on his dead cigar, took it out of his mouth, and looked at it. "Poor Bill."

            Penny sighed softly and fainted again.

Chapter 10

            Somehow we got to the final day. We did not hear from Bill again; the passenger lists showed that he went Earthside two days after his fiasco. If any news service ran anything I did not hear of it, nor did Quiroga's speeches hint at it.

            Mr. Bonforte steadily improved until it was a safe bet that he could take up his duties after the election. His paralysis continued in part but we even had that covered: he would go on vacation right after election, a routine practice that almost every politician indulges in. The vacation would be in the Tommie, safe from everything. Sometime in the course of the trip I would be transferred and smuggled back-and the Chief would have a mild stroke, brought on by the strain of the campaign.

            Rog would have to unsort some fingerprints, but he could safely wait a year or more for that.

            Election day I was happy as a puppy in a shoe closet. The impersonation was over, although I was going to do one more short turn. I had already canned two five-minute speeches for grand network, one magnanimously accepting victory, the other gallantly conceding defeat; my job was finished. When the last one was in the can, I grabbed Penny and kissed her. She didn't even seem to mind.

            The remaining short turn was a command performance; Mr. Bonforte wanted to see me-as him-before he let me drop it. I did not mind. Now that the strain was over, it did not worry me to see him; playing him for his entertainment would be like a comedy skit, except that I would do it straight. What am I saying? Playing straight is the essence of comedy.

            The whole family would gather in the upper living room-there because Mr. Bonforte had not seen the sky in some weeks and wanted to-and there we would listen to the returns, and either drink to victory or drown our sorrows and swear to do better next time. Strike me out of the last part; I had had my first and last political campaign and I wanted no more politics. I was not even sure I wanted to act again. Acting every minute for over six weeks adds up to about five hundred ordinary performances. That's a long run.

            They brought him up the lift in a wheel chair. I stayed out of sight and let them arrange him on a couch before I came in; a man is entitled not to have his weakness displayed before strangers. Besides, I wanted to make an entrance.

            I was almost startled out of character. He looked like my f ather! Oh, it was just a "family" resemblance; he and I looked much more alike than either one of us looked like my father, but the likeness was there-and the age was right, for he looked old. I had not guessed how much he had aged. He was thin and his hair was white.

            I made an immediate mental note that during the coming vacation in space I must help them prepare for the transition, the resubstitution. No doubt Capek could put weight back on him; if not, there were ways to make a man appear fleshier without obvious padding. I would dye his hair myself. The delayed announcement of the stroke he had suffered would cover the inevitable discrepancies. After all, he had changed this much in only a few weeks; the need was to keep the fact from calling attention to the impersonation.

            But these practical details were going on by themselves in a corner of my mind; my own being was welling with emotion. ifi though he was, the man gave off a force both spiritual and virile. I felt that warm, almost holy, shock one feels when first coming into sight of the great statue of Abraham Lincoln. I was reminded of another statue, too, seeing him lying there with his legs and his helpless left side covered with a shawl: the wounded Lion of Lucerne. He had that massive strength and dignity, even when helpless: "The guard dies, but never surrenders."

            He looked up as I came in and smiled the warm, tolerant, and friendly smile I had learned to portray, and motioned with his good hand for me to come to him. I smiled the same smile back and went to him. He shook hands with a grip surprisingly strong and said warmly, "I am happy to meet you at last." His speech was slightly blurred and I could not see the slackness on the side of his face away from me.

            "I am honored and happy to meet you, sir." I had to think about it to keep from matching the blurring of paralysis.

            He looked me up and down, and grinned. "It looks to me as if you had already met me."

            I glanced down at myself. "I have tried, sir."

            "'Tried'! You succeeded. It is an odd thing to see one's own self."

            I realized with sudden painful empathy that he was not emotionally aware of his own appearance; my present appearance was "his"-and any change in himself was merely incidental to illness, temporary, not to be noticed. But he went on speaking. "Would you mind moving around a bit for me, sir? I want to see me-you-us. I want the audience's viewpoint for once."

            So I straightened up, moved around the room, spoke to Penny (the poor child was looking from one to the other of us with a dazed expression), picked up a paper, scratched my collarbone and rubbed my chin, moved his wand from under my arm to my hand and fiddled with it.

            He was watching with delight. So I added an encore. Taking the middle of the rug, I gave the peroration of one of his finest' speeches, not trying to do it word for word, but interpreting it, letting it roll and thunder as he would have done-and ending with his own exact ending: "A slave cannot be freed, save he do it himself. Nor can you enslave a free man; the very most you can do is kill him!"

            There was that wonderful hushed silence, then a ripple of clapping and Bonforte himself was pounding the couch with his good hand and calling, "Bravo!"

            It was the only applause I ever got in the role. It was enough.

            He had me pull up a chair then and sit with him. I saw him glance at the wand, so I handed it to him. "The safety is on, sir."

            "I know how to use it." He looked at it closely, then handed it back. I had thought perhaps he would keep it. Since he did not, I decided to turn it over to Dak to deliver to him. He asked me about myself and told me that he did not recall ever seeing me play, but that he had seen my father's Cyrano. He was making a great effort to control the errant muscles of his mouth and his speech was clear but labored.

            Then he asked me what I intended to do now. I told him that I had no plans as yet. He nodded and said, "We'll see. There is a place for you. There is work to be done." He made no mention of pay, which made me proud.

            The returns were beginning to come in and he turned his attention to the stereo tank. Returns had been coming in, of course, for forty-eight hours, since the outer worlds and the districtless constituencies vote before Earth does, and even on Earth an election "day" is more than thirty hours long, as the globe turns. But now we began to get the important districts of the great land masses of Earth. We had forged far ahead the day before in the outer returns and Rog had had to tell me that it meant nothing; the Expansionists always carried the outer worlds. What the billions of people still on Earth who had never been out and never would thought about it was what mattered.

            But we needed every outer vote we could get. The Agrarian Party on Ganymede had swept five out of six districts; they were part of our coalition, and the Expansionist Party as such did not put up even token candidates. The situation on Venus was more ticklish, with the Venerians split into dozens of splinter parties divided on fine points of theology impossible for a human being to understand. Nevertheless, we expected most of the native vote, either directly or through caucused coalition later, and we should get practically all of the human vote there. The Imperial restriction that the natives must select human beings to represent them at New Batavia was a thing Bonforte was pledged to remove; it gained us votes on Venus; we did not know yet how many votes it would lose us on Earth.

            Since the nests sent only observers to the Assembly the only vote we worried about on Mars was the human vote. We had the popular sentiment; they had the patronage. But with an honest count we expected a shoo-in there.

            Dak was bending over a slide rule at Rog's side; Rog had a big sheet of paper laid out in some complicated weighting formula of his own. A dozen or more of the giant metal brains through the Solar System were doing the same thing that night, but Rog preferred his own guesses. He told me once that he could walk through a district, "sniffing" it, and come within two per cent of its results. I think he could.

            Doc Capek was sitting back, with his hands over his paunch, as relaxed as an angleworm. Penny was moving around, pushing straight things crooked and vice versa and fetching us drinks. She never seemed to look directly at either me or Mr. Bonforte.

            I had never before experienced an election-night party; they were not like any other. There is a cozy, warm rapport of all passion spent. It really does not matter too much how the people decide; you have done your best, you are with your friends and comrades, and for a while there is no worry and no pressure despite the over-all excitement, like frosting on a cake, of the incoming returns.

            I don't know when I've had so good a lime.

            Rog looked up, looked at me, then spoke to Mr. Bonforte. "The Continent is seesaw. The Americans are testing the water with a toe before coming in on our side; the only question is, how deep?"

            "Can you make a projection, Rog?"

            "Not yet. Oh, we have the popular vote but in the G.A. it could swing either way by half a dozen seats." He stood up. "I think I had better mosey out into town."

            Properly speaking, I should have gone, as "Mr. Bonforte." The Party leader should certainly appear at the main headquarters of the Party sometime during election night. But I had never been in headquarters, it being the sort of a buttonholing place where my impersonation might be easily breached. My "illness" had excused me from it during the campaign; tonight it was not worth the risk, so Rog would go instead, and shake hands and grin and let the keyed-up girls who had done the hard and endless paperwork throw their arms around him and weep. "Back in an hour."

            Even our little party should have been down on the lower level, to include all the office staff, especially Jimmie Washington. But it would not work, not without shutting Mr. Bonforte himself out of it. They were having their own party of course. I stood up. "Rog, I'll go down with you and say hello to Jimmie's harem."

            "Eh? You don't have to, you know."

            "It's the proper thing to do, isn't it? And it really isn't any trouble or risk." I tuned to Mr. Bonforte. "How about it, sir?"

            "I would appreciate it very much."

            We went down the lift and through the silent, empty private quarters and on through my office and Penny's. Beyond her door was bedlam. A stereo receiver, moved in for the purpose, was blasting at full gain, the floor was littered, and everybody was drinking, or smoking, or both. Even Jimmie Washington was holding a drink while he listened to the returns. He was not drinking it; he neither drank nor smoked. No doubt someone had handed it to him and he had kept it. Jimmie had a fine sense of fitness.

            I made the rounds, with Rog at my side, thanked Jimmie warmly and very sincerely, and apologized that I was feeling tired. "I'm going up and spread the bones, Jimmie. Make my excuses to people, will you?"

            "Yes, sir. You've got to take care of yourself, Mr. Minister."

            I went back up while Rog went on out into the public tunnels.

            Penny shushed me with a finger to her lips when I came into the upper living room. Bonforte seemed to have dropped off to sleep and the receiver was muted down. Dak still sat in front of it, filling in figures on the big sheet against Rog's return. Capek had not moved. He nodded and raised his glass to me.

            I let Penny fix me a scotch and water, then stepped out into the bubble balcony. It was night both by clock and by fact and Earth was almost full, dazzling in a Tiffany spread of stars. I searched North America and tried to pick out the little dot I had left only weeks earlier, and tried to get my emotions straight.

            After a while I came back in; night on Luna is rather overpowering. Rog returned a little later and sat back down at his work sheets without speaking. I noticed that Bonforte was awake again.

            The critical returns were coming in now and everybody kept quiet, letting Rog with his pencil and Dak with his slide rule have peace to work. At long, long last Rog shoved his chair back. "That's it, Chief," he said without looking up. "We're in. Majority not less than seven seats, probably nineteen, possibly over thirty."

            After a pause Bonforte said quietly, "You're sure?"

            "Positive. Penny, try another channel and see what we get."

            I went over and sat by Bonforte; I could not talk. He reached out and patted my hand in a fatherly way and we both watched the receiver. The first station Penny got said: "-doubt about it, folks; eight of the robot brains say yes, Curiae says maybe. The Expansionist Party has won a decisive-" She switched to another.

            "-confirms his temporary post for another five years. Mr. Quiroga cannot be reached for a statement but his general manager in New Chicago admits that the present trend cannot be over--"

            Rog got up and went to the phone; Penny muted the news down until nothing could be heard. The announcer continued mouthing; he was simply saying in different words what we already knew.

            Rog came back; Penny turned up the gain. The announcer went on for a moment, then stopped, read something that was handed to him, and turned back with a broad grin. "Friends and fellow citizens, I now bring you for a statement the Supreme Minister!"

            The picture changed to my victory speech.

            I sat there luxuriating in it, with my feelings as mixed up as possible but all good, painfully good. I had done a job on the speech and I knew it; I looked tired, sweaty, and calmly triumphant. It sounded ad-kb.

            I had just reached: "Let us go forward together, with freedom for all-" when I heard a noise behind me.

            "Mr. Bonforte!" I said. "Doc! Doe! Come quickly!"

            Mr. Bonforte was pawing at me with his right hand and trying very urgently to tell me something. But it was no use; his poor mouth failed him and his mighty indomitable will could not make the weak flesh obey.

            I took him in my arms-then he went into Cheyne-Stokes breathing and quickly into termination.

            They took his body back down in the lift, Dak and Capek together; I was no use to them. Rog came up and patted me on the shoulder, then he went away. Penny had followed the others down. Presently I went again out onto the balcony. I needed "fresh air" even though it was the same machine-pumped air as the living room. But it felt fresher.

            They had killed him. His enemies had killed him as certainly as if they had put a knife in his ribs. Despite all that we had done, the risks we had taken, in the end they had murdered him. "Murder most four'!

            I felt dead inside me, numb with the shock. I had seen "myself" die, I had again seen my father die. I knew then why they so rarely manage to save one of a pair of Siamese twins. I was empty.

            I don't know how long I stayed out there. Eventually I heard Rog's voice behind me. "Chief?"

            I tuned. "Rog," I said urgently, "don't call me that. Please!"

            "Chief," he persisted, "you know what you have to do now? Don't you?"

            I felt dizzy and his face blurred. I did not know what he was talking about-I did not want to know what he was talking about.

            "What do you mean?"

            "Chief-one man dies-but the show goes on. You can't quit now."

            My head ached and my eyes would not focus. He seemed to pull toward me and away while his voice drove on. ". - - robbed him of his chance to finish his work. So you've got to do it f or him. You've got to make him live again!"

            I shook my head and made a great effort to pull myself together and reply. "Rog, you don't know what you are saying. It's preposterous-ridiculous! Fm no statesman. I'm just a bloody actor! I make faces and make people laugh. That's all I'm good for."

            To my own horror I heard myself say it in Bonforte's voice.

            Rog looked at me. "Seems to me you've done all right so far."

            I tried to change my voice, tried to gain control of the situation. "Rog, you're upset. When you've calmed down you will see how ridiculous this is. You're right; the show goes on. But not that way. The proper thing to do-the only thing to do-is for you yourself to move on up. The election is won; you've got your majority-now you take office and carry out the program."

            He looked at me and shook his head sadly. "I would if I could. I admit it. But I can't. Chief, you remember those confounded executive committee meetings? You kept them in line. The whole coalition has been kept glued together by the personal force and leadership of one man. If you don't follow through now, all that he lived for-and died for-will fall apart."

            I had no answering argument; he might be right-I had seen the wheels within wheels of politics in the past month and a half. "Rog, even if what you say is true, the solution you offer is impossible. We've barely managed to keep up this pretense by letting me be seen only under carefully stage-managed conditions-and we've just missed being caught out as it is. But to make it work week after week, month after month, even year after year, if I understand you-no, it couldn't be done. It is impossible. I can't do it!"

            "You can!" He leaned toward me and said forcefully, "We've all talked it over and we know the hazards as well as you do. But you'll have a chance to grow into it. Two weeks in space to start with-hell, a month if you want it! You'll study all the time-his journals, his boyhood diaries, his scrapbooks, you'll soak yourself in them. And we'll all help you."

            I did not answer. He went on, "Look, Chief, you've learned that a political personality is not onq man; it's a team-it's a team bound together by common purposes and common beliefs. We've lost our team captain and we've got to have another one. But the team is still there."

            Capek was out on the balcony; I had not seen him come out. I tuned to him. "Are you for this too?"

            "It's your duty," Rog added.

            Capek said slowly, "I won't go that far. I hope you will do it. But, damnit, I won't be your conscience. I believe in free will, frivolous as that may sound from a medical man." He turned to Clifton. "We had better leave him alone, Rog. He knows. Now it's up to him."

            But, although they left, I was not to be alone just yet. Dak came out. To my relief and gratitude he did not call me "Chief."

            "Hello, Dak."

            "Howdy." He was silent for a moment, smoking and looking out at the stars. Then he turned to me. "Old son, we've been through some things together. I know you now, and I'll back you with a gun, or money, or fists any time, and never ask why. If you choose to drop out now, I won't have a word of blame and I won't think any the less of you. You've done a noble best."

            "Uh, thanks, Dak."

            "One more word and I'll smoke out. Just remember this: if you decide you can't do it, the foul scum who brainwashed him will win. In spite of everything, they win." He went inside.

            I felt ton apart in my mind-then I gave way to sheer self-pity. It wasn't fair! I had my own life to live. I was at the top of my powers, with my greatest professional triumphs still ahead of me. It wasn't right to expect me to bury myself, perhaps for years, in the anonymity of another man's role-while the public forgot me, producers and agents forgot me-would probably believe I was dead.

            It wasn't fair. It was too much to ask.

            Presently I pulled out of it and for a time did not think. Mother Earth was still serene and beautiful and changeless in the sky; I wondered what the election-night, celebrations there sounded like. Mars and Jupiter and Venus were all in sight, strung like prizes along the zodiac. Ganymede I could not see, of course, nor the lonely colony out on far Pluto.

            "Worlds of Hope," Bonforte had called them.

            But he was dead. He was gone. They had taken away from him his birthright at its ripe fullness. He was dead.

            And they had put it up to me to re-create him, make him live again.

            Was. I up to it? Could I possibly measure up to his noble standards? What would he want me to do? If he were in my place- what would Bonf one do? Again and again in the campaign I had asked myself: "What would Bonforte do?"

            Someone moved behind me, I tuned and saw Penny. I looked at her and said, "Did they send you out? Did you come to plead with me?"

            "No."

            She added nothing and did not seem to expect me to answer, nor did we look at each other. The silence went on. At last I said, "Penny? If I try to do it-will you help?"

            She turned suddenly toward me. "Yes. Oh yes, Chief! I'll help!'?

            "Then I'll try," I said humbly.

            I wrote all of the above twenty-five years ago to try to straighten out my own confusion. I tried to tell the truth and not spare myself because it was not meant to be read by anyone but myself and my therapist, Dr. Capek. It is strange, after a quarter of a century, to reread the foolish and emotional words of that young man. I remember him, yet I have trouble realizing that I was ever he. My wife Penelope claims that she remembers him better than I do-and that she never loved anyone else. So time changes us.

            I find I can "remember" Bonforte's early life better than I remember my actual life as that rather pathetic person, Lawrence Smith, or-as he liked -to style himself-"The Great Lorenzo." Does that make me insane? Schizophrenic, perhaps? If so, it is a necessary insanity for the role I have had to play, for in order to let Bonforte live again, that seedy actor had to be suppressed- completely.

            Insane or not, I am aware that he once existed and that I was he. He was never a success as an actor, not really-though I think he was sometimes touched with the true madness. He made his final exit still perfectly in character; I have a yellowed newspaper clipping somewhere which states that he was "found dead" in a Jersey City hotel room from an overdose of sleeping pills-apparently taken in a fit of despondency, for his agent issued a statement that he had not had a part in several months. Personally, I feel that they need not have mentioned that about his being out of work; if not libelous, it was at least unkind. The date of the clipping proves, incidentally, that he would not have been in New Batavia, or anywhere else, during the campaign of '15.

            I suppose I should bum it.

            But there is no one left alive today who knows the truth other than Dak and Penelope-except the men who murdered Bonforte's body.

            I have been in and out of office three times now and perhaps this term will be my last. I was knocked out the first time when we finally put the eetees-Venerians and Martians and Outer Jovians

-into the Grand Assembly. But the non-human peoples are still there and I came back. The people will take a certain amount of reform, then they want a rest. But the reforms stay. People don't really want change, any change at all-and xenophobia is very deep-rooted. But we progress, as we must-if we are to go out to the stars.

            Again and again I have asked myself: "What would Bonforte do?" I am not sure that my answers have always been right (although I am sure that I am the best-read student in his works in the System). But I have tried to stay in character in his role. A long time ago someone-Voltaire?-someone said, "If Satan should ever replace God he would find it necessary to assume the attributes of Divinity."

            I have never regretted my lost profession. In a way, I have not lost it; Willem was right. There is other applause besides handclapping and there is always the warm glow of a good performance. I have tried, I suppose, to create the perfect work of art. Perhaps I have not fully succeeded-but I think my father would rate it as a "good performance."

            No, I do not regret it, even though I was happier then-at least I slept better. But there is solemn satisfaction in doing the best you can for eight billion people.

            Perhaps their lives have no cosmic significance, but they have feelings. They can hurt.