The Grand Council hall had changed somewhat in the last two hours. The Master of Palace City had been busy. Some of the diamond-studded banners had been recovered from the baggage of dead Apparatus troops. The portrait of Cling and his two elder sons had come down and in its place was one of Mortiiy as a young man in the full-dress uniform of a Fleet officer. Some Palace City guards had returned to duty and stood about like statues in blue and violet. Servants of ex-Lords were scurrying about, clearing up the remains of the repast. Heller had gotten a drink of sparklewater, eaten a sweetbun, washed his face and changed to a golden Lord's tunic that the master had dug up, but he had girded it with his officer's belt and sidearms. He took his place now on the dais. The Countess Krak sat down on a small stool to the side and slightly behind his chair. She sat there as though in mourning, suffering and silent. The crowded place was in a hubbub. Even more people seemed to have been added. Heller was about to hit the table with the butt of his gun when, suddenly, four trumpets blared and a cymbal crashed. It startled him. He looked over at a small balcony where the master was standing. The fellow winked! He had been watching Heller's hand. Heller suppressed his desire to laugh. He muttered to himself, "Well, like Mortiiy, I've got to realize those days are over." And he put the gun in its holster. "Gentlemen," he said into the suddenly silent room, "this Officers' Conference is reopened. We have several subjects to take up. I shall reserve until the last the disposal of the planet Blito-P3. Right now I wish to finalize the matter of the Earth girl and the catamites." There was an instant rushing snarl, a wave of hate and ferocity from the more than two thousand people assembled. The Homeview crew was on the job and the backfeed viewers on the far wall showed the reactions of the mobs in the streets. In the night-lighted thoroughfares on this side of the planet and the sunlit ones elsewhere, the reaction was instant hate. "Oh, dear," muttered Heller to himself. "I've got to play this very, very cool." An Army general at the table roared out in a parade-ground voice, "We have discovered that this Earth girl is posing as the Hostage Queen of Flisten, right here in Palace City!" "We demand immediate action!" shouted the most senior official of the Domestic Police. "Kill the Earth girl!" shouted the people in the room. "Execute the catamites!" screamed the jammed crowds in the streets. "Madison, Madison," muttered Heller, "what have you done! Earth is about as popular here as a carload of skunks." He made a signal toward the place the master had been standing: another man was there now but the cymbals crashed. Heller put on a very stern face. He would have to play this expertly. Into the silence, he said, "I was afraid for a while that you would not approve my extreme severity, but I see now that you will probably go along with it." "He's ordered them all executed," went the whisper around the table. Heller heard it. "Worse," he said. "Far worse. I have just concluded a treaty with the Hostage Queen of Flisten. I am, because of its severity, making it contingent upon approval by this Officers' Conference." They waited, hungry for vengeance. "Mere execution is too quick," said Heller. "They need time to suffer and repent for their sins." Heads nodded. "I therefore have proposed the sentence of extreme exile to a barren rock far out in the ocean." Satisfaction began to register. "I have forced her to give up her Palace City palace and, because they were contaminated, have ordered that the whole domestic staff there be sent into exile as well. This makes them suffer with her." "Wise," heads nodded, "wise." "And these young miscreants who followed her in corruption are being severely exiled as well! This extends even to the sons of some ex-Lords to give you the idea of the thorough violence intended." There was some applause. "And to this barren, desolate place, I also exile J. Walter Madison and his hellish crew." More applause. "No communication of any kind will be permitted from the world. We will let them sink, alone, in the infamy of their own Hells!" Wild applause. People at the table were standing up and cheering. When it had died down, Heller took a sheet of proclamation paper from his tunic. "This is the treaty amendment with the Hostage Queen of Flisten. If you gentlemen will affix your signatures and plates above that of His Majesty, we can then give it a number and the matter will be finalized. The Hostage Queen of Flisten, as you will see, has already signed it." He handed it to an usher who began to pass it from officer to officer at the table. He was pushing secretly to Krak, below at his side, a child's toy camera which he had picked up off the floor in Teenie's palace. "There was no Homeview around," he whispered, "so I had to do it myself." She took it. Such devices have ten minutes of picture time in them. On the back is a little screen that shows what has been shot. The things are just junk and the quality is awful. Two-dimensional. Below the level of the table, Krak turned it on, feeling very sad. Heller had apparently put it on a table and started it running when he and Teenie had first entered the room. The place was evidently a seneschal's office. Krak saw Teenie sit down at the desk. Heller remained standing. He was selling her on the idea of a treaty. That was what he wanted her to do for him. Amend the existing treaty of the Hostage Queen of Flisten. After a bit, Heller said, "It would be best if you gave up your palace in Palace City. The staff seems to want to go with you and you could take your things." "Well, that's no hardship," said Teenie. "The wives of Lords around here snoot the hell out of me-just a bunch of cats. Could I dig my marijuana up in the palace gardens? A lot of it is ready to harvest and some of it is very valuable: Panama Red." "I'll put Snelz in charge of the move. So that will be okay, but we won't mention it in writing. You have my word." "And I really, truly get Madison?" "Absolutely. You'll have to take his whole crew. If he signs over the General Loop townhouse to the government, he can take his baggage and so can they. Actually the whole lot should be returned to prison and Madison should be shot, so you be very, very careful, Teenie. He's dangerous as blazes. You've got dungeons over there: did you know I surveyed Relax Island once to update the charts? There'd been an earthquake. The whole place is just a hollow volcanic bubble. One of the cliffs had slipped. It's quite a lovely place. But don't get soft in the head with Madison: put him in one of those dungeons." "Oh, I will, I will," said Teenie, smiling brightly. "And now we come to Gris," said Heller. "Oh, yes, we do, don't we?" Teenie said, smiling very broadly. "I got him his trial but the coward fainted before he heard the whole sentence. Here it is." She took it. She read aloud, "Said Soltan Gris is found guilty of high treason. His final execution will be done by hanging and exposure from a gibbet in the Royal prison until his body rots away; but before he is executed, he is to complete a life sentence in a prison designated by the Hostage Queen of Flisten." Teenie began to smile with a peculiar, ferocious intensity. She read it again, savoring it. Then she said, "You hinted you would give me Gris but, brother, this is the real goods! You're a screaming genius, Whiz Kid. Oh, boy!" "Now, there's one caution," said Heller. "His records at the Royal prison will remain on file until that sentence is completed. So you've got to return or order returned his body when he dies. Then they can string it up." "Oh, I will, I will!" said Teenie. "Now, I'm only doing this because you intimated you simply wanted to keep him in a dungeon. I wouldn't have suggested he be turned over to you if I thought you were going to torture him. I don't hold with torture." "Oh, I won't," said Teenie. "I just want the comfort of knowing he's nice and safe in a quiet dungeon. I give you my word I won't even touch him." "Good," said Heller. "Now, we're leaving a lot of.this treaty, such as Gris, verbal. But there's one thing that will have to go in it. Communication will have to remain cut off with Relax Island. Planetary Defense will enforce it." "Oh, to hell with that," said Teenie. "Who wants to talk to the outside world when you got Gris to inspect and five hundred noblemen to (bleep). Whiz Kid, you really are the most. I love you!" And she signed the treaty and hit it with her Royal seal. As they started to leave the room, Heller grabbed the treaty, put it in his tunic and snatched up the child's camera. Krak looked at her watch. Ten minutes! All they'd done was talk! She whispered to Heller crossly, "You shouldn't have made me think you were doing something else! You and your jokes!" "It wasn't a joke," said Heller. "Maybe those catamites will get the idea they should be men. I couldn't arrange any treaty in a room with all that yowling, but maybe, too, it helped her pride to make them think it was her feminine charm that had worked." Krak snorted. "You and other people's feelings!" "Keep that camera and strip with my files," said Heller. "I might need it to safeguard my own reputation or defend myself from your accusations in some fight." "Oh, Jettero, I was just fooling. I've learned my lesson. I'm not jealous anymore." "Oh, yeah?" he said in English. That made her laugh. "Jettero, it's not my jealousy that's liable to come between us: it's your awful sense of humor!" "You just laughed," he called to her attention. That broke her up. The world looked much better. But that was that world, the world of Voltar. The fate of another world, Earth, would be settled forever this very night!