Mortiiy was finally able to be heard. He swept a glance around the faces at the vast table and then across the hall. "In 125,000 years," he said, "we have never had such turmoil. We've had a few traitors, we have had a few civil wars, but nothing to compare with this. "I've had an estimate that there are a million civilians dead in the streets, that property damage has mounted to tens of billions of credits. We also almost lost a planet-Calabar-which endured more than five years of heavy attack. I believe that that is also connected with this present scene. "Before we can reorganize the government, we have to root out this disease and handle it or it could just happen all over again. I may have ideas of what was behind it, but I am not going to start my rule with guesses and prejudice. I mean to isolate exactly what caused this chaos and that is the first business of this conference." The senior admiral of the Fleet Admiral's staff shouted from his place at the table, "It was Hisst!" A snarl of agreement coursed throughout the crowded hall. "One man?" said Mortiiy. "I'm more inclined to believe it was a conspiracy. But, all right, it's as good a place as any to start. Who knows anything about Hisst?" A savage roar swept through the room. Notables they might be and conservative to the core, but they had one thing in common: a violent hatred for Hisst. The Homeview monitors which were playing on the far wall were suddenly cut to crowd shots under the glaring lights of the streets where people were watching the conference on portable sets and viewers in store windows. The sound volume roared with hate. Heller pounded his gun butt on the upper split-level of the table. He bent over to Mortiiy and indicated to him a young Fleet officer who, behind the row of admirals, was waving for attention. "Bis?" said Mortiiy. Heller nodded. "Officer Bis," shouted Mortiiy. "You have our attention." An admiral made room so Bis could get to the edge of the table. "Your Majesty," said Bis, "I have an Apparatus clerk who knew Hisst when he was a young Apparatus officer. This man has been very helpful. As a matter of fact he's under the conference table right now with Fleet technicians trying to get temporary power to the individual surface screens at the conference table seats and to the large center viewer here. We're trying to shunt in Apparatus and other data banks for conference use." Bis bent over and yelled into the cavity under-the table, "Hey, Bawtch. His Majesty wants to talk to you. Come out." Old Bawtch stuck his head up over the table rim. The gray hair tufts on either side of his head stuck straight out. His eyes were round and scared. "Somebody give him a seat," said Mortiiy. "Bawtch? Well, see here, Bawtch, if you go on being helpful I can promise you that we can forget your Apparatus connections. Tell us what you know of Lombar Hisst." Old Bawtch nervously took the offered seat. "It was the freaks." "Freaks?" said Mortiiy. "What do freaks have to do with it?" "Well, when I was a young clerk, Your Majesty, I was assigned to the Exterior Division Intelligence Files and a new officer-Lombar Hisst-came in. This was fifty years ago, Your Majesty. I was filing some survey data from a planet named Blito-P3. It's on the Invasion Timetable, Your Majesty, and we've got several thousand years of data oh it because we're going to invade and conquer it one of these days-as a matter of fact there's been a lot of talk lately of stepping it up…" "Don't maunder," said Mortiiy. "You started out talking about freaks." "Well, yes, Your Majesty. I was filing a pack of photographs from a circus run by P. T. Barnum. It had a two-headed calf (that's an animal) and a boy with a dog face (a dog is another animal) and two women joined physically called Siamese twins and some others, and this young Hisst picked them up and began to laugh. And then he said, 'With cellology we could go that one better' and he took the whole pack. "Then the next thing I knew, he had fished a criminal cellologist named Crobe out of a prison and they began to make freaks and sell them to circuses. Those were the first freaks ever exhibited." "How disgusting," said Mortiiy. "'P. T. Barnum', you say? That doesn't sound very Voltarian. I never heard of any circuses by that name." "No, Your Majesty. I didn't make myself clear. The freak idea came from Blito-P3. Locally there, they call it Earth." "Well, that simply shows Hisst might be insane. Thank you for____________________

"

"Wait, Your Majesty. It doesn't end there. This Hisst started plaguing me for more data about that planet and the next thing I knew, a section had been created for it, Section 451 Exterior Division Intelligence." "You mean 'Apparatus,'" said Mortiiy. "No, Your Majesty. It wasn't called the Apparatus then. This Lombar Hisst, as a young officer, seemed to gain an awful lot of influence very fast. He'd plague me for data on Blito-P3 and then he'd go to the then Chief of Intelligence or over his head to the Lord of the Exterior and Hisst would put it out as his own ideas and they'd institute it. They promoted him right and left. It was after he got the files on the various intelligence agencies on Blito-P3 that he got the name of our organization changed to the Coordinated Information Apparatus. "Long before he was Chief of the Apparatus, Hisst had put here the provocation techniques of the Russian KGB: it's a system of provoking people to commit crimes so you can arrest them. From the pattern of an organization known as the Schutzstaffel, in Germany, developed by a man named Hitler, we began to recruit criminals from the prisons to serve in the Apparatus. Our Death Battalions also come from there. From the CIA in the United States, the Apparatus got the idea of having an independent military force that would fight wars without the approval of the government. From the FBI of that same country, Lombar obtained the pattern they use of ruling the whole land by blackmailing legislative representatives and keeping those bodies in a state of terror by manufacturing crimes that never happened-called Abscams. We–" "Hold it," said Mortiiy. "You're drowning me with names I never heard of." "Those are all from Blito-P3," said Bawtch. "Locally called Earth. That's where we got the pattern of our Apparatus from." A snarl went through the hall. Madison's hopes surged. Maybe he could capitalize on this sudden unpopularity of Earth. Maybe he could image Heller as the protector of that planet: Controversy was what he needed now. He said swiftly into the commentator mike, "The outlaw Heller for the whole past year has had his lair on the planet Earth." Heller, oblivious of the statements Madison was making and, indeed, completely unaware that Madison, behind his Homeview visor, was even in the hall, rapped his gun butt three times for order so Mortiiy could continue. "So Hisst," said Mortiiy, "was interested in the planet Earth so he could create the abomination called the Apparatus. I-" "No, Your Majesty," said Bawtch, "that wasn't why Hisst was interested in that planet. It was the history of a family dynasty named the Rockecenters. They sprang up from a man who was a servant-raper about a century ago. The fellow sold a poison called crude oil for a cancer cure. He was a commoner. He brought up his sons to be thieves and one of them made a fortune out of this crude oil and then, by manipulating it and banks and taking over and using Earth intelligence services, he made himself and his generations that followed virtual emperors of the planet. Hisst was fascinated. He had never imagined before that it could be done. He himself was a commoner from the gutters of Slum City and he dreamed that if he followed this pattern, he could become Emperor here. And he did, even if very briefly." "You say all this happened," said Mortiiy, "on the planet Earth? Incredible! What a weird place that must be!" Madison hastily said into the commentary mike, "The outlaw Heller furthered his outlaw career on Earth by calling himself Rockecenter. This definitely proves his outlaw connections." Mortiiy nodded to Bawtch, signifying he could move away from the table or get back to work. "Now that we know where the Apparatus came from, I am open to a vote to abolish it forever and prohibit use of these criminal patterns of intelligence from Blito-P3." The assent vote was deafening. As Joy City cut back to crowds in cities massed in squares, watching or getting news of this conference, the Homeview monitors on the walls almost split apart with roars. Madison said into the commentary mike, "The outlaw Heller studied Earth intelligence and was an expert in it. He advocates it thoroughly. In no small way, it contributed to his rise as an interplanetary outlaw." He was feeling very hopeful now. He was building Controversy. He was getting Coverage. His Confidence was rising.