The Diplomatic Division was called upon by the Crown. The Lord of the Diplomats said, "I could suggest a peace mission. The planet could be offered technical assistance in handling its planet preservation problems and then when the proper invasion date arrived we could go ahead and execute on schedule." There were cries of "No" and "Never!" from various parts of the table and the Crown had to call for cymbals. Even that didn't quiet them.

"That's what began the cost overrun of the Hombivinin War!" shouted the Lord of the Profit Division.

"The Hombivinins panicked and evacuated their cities," seconded the Division of Propaganda, very cross. "You keep your peace missions out of this!" A couple of other Lords said, "Peace missions!" in scathing contempt.

The Crown had to set the cymbals going again just to be heard. "I would like to inform Your Lordships that His Majesty doesrequire that you furnish a solution and in this meeting!"That not-at-all-veiled threat brought silence.

Lombar eagerly punched Endow. "Now!" he whispered. "Now!"

"May it please the Crown," began Endow. "Although the resources of the Exterior Division are extremely overstrained, this matter could be properly placed in its capable hands." The large hall was listening. I couldn't believe it. Somehow Lombar was going to pull this whole mess out of the mud!

"Without alarming or alerting Blito-P3," continued the well-coached Endow, "it is possible to infiltrate an agent into that population. This agent, carefully and competently handled by us, could 'leak' technical data into the normal channels of the planet. Data which would restrain their planetary pollution without improving their defense." He certainly had the attention of every glittering luminary in that hall. The Crown nodded encouragingly.

Enormously emboldened, beautifully coached and secretly patted by an expansive Lombar Hisst, Endow plowed on. "There are simple solutions to the difficulties the planet is encountering. Planetary destruction could be arrested or retarded until the proper invasion date arrived." There was an audible sigh of relief from the Lord of the Fleet and a "Go on, go on," from the Lord of the Army.

Lombar touched Endow's back. It was the signal for a change of tactic. Well timed. Endow suddenly became coy. "Of course, such a plan requires several years to execute. The agent would have to establish himself as one of them;he would have to be extremely careful. So it will take time and the Exterior Division would not want to be harassed every month by demanded reports when it was actually succeeding on a long-term project."

"Sounds good," muttered several Lords.

"It would require special appropriations," said Endow. "Insignificant amounts compared to a disastrous emergency campaign."

"How much?" demanded the Lord of the Profit Division.

Lombar whispered. Endow spoke. "Two or three million credits." That, as much as anything, clinched it. It was such a paltry sum to them that it absolved Endow from trying to act just for the sake of personal graft. In their positions, given a chance like that, they would have invented anything and named a colossal sum. There would be little or nothing for Endow. The plan must, therefore, be totally valid.

"Well, well," said the Crown. "Your Lordships, do you approve this plan?" There were no dissents.

"Very well," said the Crown. "I instruct the clerks to draw up the authority to entrust this matter to the discretion of the Exterior Division, time limits unspecified, three million credits allocated subject to readjustment. And I can report to His Majesty that a plan has been arrived at, agreed upon and is in motion." A whistle of relief was heard throughout the hall.

We had done it!

My Gods, Lombar had pulled it out of the fire!

I honestly don't remember the rest of that Council meeting. I couldn't believe my head was back on my shoulders. I couldn't believe the Apparatus timetable was still intact. I couldn't believe Lombar's ambitions could now flower unimpeded. I was in a euphoric daze.

I didn't at all anticipate, when we left that glittering hall, that within twenty-four hours I would be in a pit of blackest despair.

The following morning, I stood in the anteroom outside Lombar's fortress office in Spiteos, waiting for permission to enter. From the window of the crumbling tower, I could look far across the Great Desert to the green mountains at the back of Government City – two hundred miles of barren expanse, impossible to cross on foot.

Under a nearby hill, the Apparatus training camp sprawled, an ugly collection of ramshackle huts. "Camp Endurance" they called it in the directories: "Camp Kill" was what it was known by locally. It was supposed to give privation training to recruits, but actually it existed to excuse the sometimes heavy traffic to Spiteos and to serve as a reserve guard. The real complement of it was wholly made up of Apparatus guard thugs and the only recruits that ever got there were creatures not even the Apparatus could use – and they never left alive.

The towering, black basalt walls of Spiteos were supposed to have been erected by some long gone race that had inhabited the planet a hundred and fifty thousand years ago, a race that could only work stone and had perished in a single breath of guns in the first wave of the Voltar invasion.

The myth that the castle itself was still too radioactive to be used was continued by cunningly installed detector reply screens: when planetary surveillance beams hit them, they absorbed the incoming energy and sent back the wavelengths of radiation contamination.

There was no radiation. The wavelengths Spiteos really had came from the suffering depths below me where, a mile into the ground, packed in foul cages, thousands of political prisoners were moaning out the last of their lives. The definition of "political prisoner" was "someone who might get in the road of Apparatus plans." Some clerks had a joke definition: "Anybody Lombar Hisst doesn't like," but they only whispered it to closest friends and even that was unwise. I had once asked Lombar, when he was drunk, why he didn't just kill them and have done with it and he had replied with a knowing wink, "One never knows when they might come in handy – and besides, relatives have been known to cooperate." You could almost feel them through the rock.

It was hot.

A buzzer sawed through the air and a clerk jerked his head for me to go in.

Lombar's Spiteos office was at the top of some worn steps. It was the whole upper part of a rampart, carefully masked from the air. Gold coverings sagged on the walls, ancient battle scenes of incalculable value. Silver urns stood about. The furniture had been looted from a Royal tomb. Every single object in the vast room was factually beyond price, looted and extorted during Lombar's decades as head of the Apparatus. But somehow he had arranged them and used them in such a way that they seemed shabby. It was a "gift" Lombar had.

One whole wall was covered by a mirror and I was a little embarrassed now to see Lombar preening himself in front of it. He had had a gold cape made, emblazoned with Royal arms, and he wore it now, turning this way and that, looking at himself in the mirror. He finished and took it off, folding the fabric very carefully. He laid the cape away in a silver chest and spun the lock. As Your Lordship knows, it is the death penalty for a commoner to don a Royal cape.

"Sit down, sit down," said Lombar, waving to a chair. He was smiling and relaxed.

I hadbeen feeling pretty good. Suddenly I was terrified!

The stinger lay neglected on a bench. He was being courteous, even jovial.

What did he want?