In the Grand Council hall, the treaty was taking its time getting back to Heller: this was due mainly to arguments occurring at every seat around the hundred-foot-diameter table, arguments which were not concerned with the treaty but with the seniority of members of each division now that there was no Lord for it. Two or three were represented only by a chief clerk and, unlike the military and police, had never had a precise chain of command below the level of nobility. But Heller, sitting on the dais, was not impatient as he watched the paper slowly coming back. It only had two signatures left to be signed. "Well, this will be one down and five to go," he said to the Countess Krak in a low voice without turning to look down at her. "I still can't understand why Mortiiy picked me for Viceregal Chairman. He's got lots of friends and far more experienced men for the job." "He was smart," whispered the Countess Krak. "The military didn't jump in until the last moment and so their loyalty to him is not proven. All his friends are rebels and that wouldn't go down well with the whole population. You were never other than loyal to Cling. Furthermore, you're very popular with the population. Mortiiy thinks of you as a brother officer he can trust and, if you look at it head on, he really owes his throne to you. He's a very clever man, really. And, of course, my Jettero is brilliant, handsome, charming…" "And has a bad sense of humor," laughed Heller. "Well, anyway, I didn't start his reign with the slaughter of a bunch of little boys. Reigns that begin by ordering blood baths are pretty unlucky. Maybe," he added, looking suddenly bright, "maybe there is some hope for government. Maybe it can be run right!" "Then you'd better start thinking pretty fast," said the Countess Krak. "You just said one down and five to go and, according to the notes you've got scribbled there, disposing of Earth is the last item on your agenda. Are you really going to be able to face up to ordering and arranging the deaths of five billion people?" Heller frowned and looked down at the table before him. "I know you, Jettero. You're thinking of Izzy and Bang-Bang and all your friends there. You've got a heart as soft as mush, for all of your tough exterior. You're probably even feeling sorry for Miss Simmons! Some of those five billion were your personal friends." "Maybe, in spite of all those flattering reasons you just gave," said Heller, "Mortiiy was dead wrong to put me in this job." He brightened. "I know. I was just handy. He only intended it as a temporary appointment. It's very simple. All I have to do is stall this meeting on the subject of Earth and as soon as he gets a real Crown appointed, I'll simply hand it over to him as unfinished business and happily go back to the Fleet." He sighed. "That's a relief." "I've got news for you," said the Countess Krak, and pushed into his hand a sheet of Royal proclamation paper. "When he left this conference tonight, he was so pleased with the way you had gotten things going, he wrote this. He asked me if I'd bring it back for the clerk to record." Heller was staring at a signed and sealed sheet that appointed him first Lord of the land and Viceregal Chairman of the Grand Council. It was permanent. He groaned. "This puts me in a bad dilemma, really. I spend a year putting a planet back together and now I have orders to blow it up." "And you can't weasel out of it," said the Countess Krak. "The reason I am handing you this is so you don't do something silly and defy orders and get yourself in trouble." "You had something to do with this," said Heller. "No. Factually now, I didn't. He thought of it all on his own. But I will admit that it gives me great satisfaction. You are a factor of three beyond the expected life of a combat engineer. You now have a nice, safe post." "In which all I have to do is say 'Blow up this planet,' 'Slaughter that one.' I'm going to put this conference on delay and go see Mortiiy and resign!" "No, you won't," said the Countess Krak. "Because if you do, I'll tear up this." And she showed him another signed, sealed Royal order. It gave her back her title and citizenship and restored to her the vast Krak estates on Manco. He hastily put his hand on hers to stop the tearing gesture. "But this is wonderful!" he said. "I am so happy for you!" "I meant to tell you after this conference," she said, "to celebrate, I have even commandeered a palace for us." Tears were in her eyes. "Don't ruin it, Jettero." He couldn't stand to see her cry. He was conscious of the Homeview cameras that were suddenly on them. The treaty was now being handed up by a violet-uniformed usher who laid it before him on the raised split-level of the vast table. Heller thought fast. He had to hide her tears from the camera. He bent down and kissed her. The backfeed monitors across the room brought him the sudden cheer from crowds watching him. But he whispered, "Go get Hightee and the Master of Palace City and tell them I want to see them right away. And get out of here. You win. I will do my job." A trifle uncertain, feeling a little bit like Nepogat the Damnable who had betrayed Prince Caucalsia in the legend, the Countess Krak hastily vanished down the back steps of the dais. She was telling herself that nobody could prevent the destruction of Earth anyway and there was no reason to let it commit another crime and shatter her coming marriage. Besides, even though Jettero liked the place, she had always been horrified at the primitive decadence of that culture, never able to understand how a planet so potentially beautiful could be "so rottenly mauled by an uncaring power elite. As she walked away on her errand, she said to herself, "It is totally beyond salvation: all Voltar is thirsting for its blood, no thanks to Madison. To blazes with Earth. I have saved Jettero."

Heller picked up the signed treaty and made a small gesture to the man on the balcony. Four trumpets and a crash of cymbals blasted through the vast hall. Heller ranged his gaze across the throng. "Gentlemen," he said, "I wish to thank you for these concurring signatures on this treaty. I take it as a vote of confidence in the Emperor Mortiiy and regard it as an auspicious beginning to what even the most pessimistic must now begin to regard as a happy, prosperous and powerful reign auguring peace, tranquility and triumph for all the Voltar Confederation. All hail Mortiiy the Brilliant!" The trumpets blared and the cymbals clashed in a Royal salute. Everyone in the room stood and shouted, "Long Live His Majesty!" The crowds in the streets, despite the hour, went mad with cheering. Heller wished Vantagio, the political science major from the Gracious Palms, were there to give him some tips. This was all new to him. Poor Vantagio. He handed the treaty to the clerk to record. He signalled for another cymbal clash. "And now, as I am charged by His Majesty to do so faithfully, I here take up the second of the six actions to end past turmoils of this realm. To truly begin a new era, one must truly end the old." He had thought to cheer the hall and crowds a bit and get them out of their thirst for blood. He had no liking for Lombar Hisst but neither did he want to see a man ripped to pieces physically by the two thousand or more people in this room. There had, in his opinion, been quite enough blood. "We will now take up the case of one of the principal instigators of Royal murder and governmental decay." The crowds on the monitors were suddenly silent. The room was still. Heller was about to bring in the product of his horse trade. "CAPTAIN! PRODUCE THE PRISONER LOMBAR HISST!" Heller had ordered that Hisst be cleaned up and that he be ushered in without too much degradation. But common caution had modified his orders a bit. A side door opened. Lombar Hisst was yanked forward. He was in a red general's uniform of the Apparatus. The only one they had evidently been able to find, since his own was scorched, had been taken off a corpse. The red was blackened by the darker, unmistakable stains of blood. They had gotten somewhere, probably from Teenie's palace, an electric collar. It was around his neck. At the end of the chain was a burly Fleet marine. He gave a yank and Hisst stumbled forward into the glaring lights of Homeview. He looked for all the world like some ape being led on a leash. Heller's hopes of calming the crowd down were all vanished in a puff. The room screamed with sudden, savage hate! The backfeed on the monitors sizzled with ferocity. Then Heller saw that something was definitely wrong. Hisst was being tugged forward to be made to stand by the conference table, but there was something wrong with his eyes. They were always an animal yellow and a bit spooky but now they were flaring and strange. Hisst came to a stop. He did not seem to be the least bit aware of the din that was damning him. He seemed to be speaking. Heller called for silence and the cymbals had to sound five times before the shouts in the room ceased. "Lombar Hisst," said Heller, "you have been brought before this Officers' Conference that you may be charged and may plead any justification for your acts. I have here a Royal proclamation on which we may write your fate which, I must advise you, is being left in the hands of this conference. I can, however, relegate you to a full trial if you have any statement which might persuade us to do so. Some mitigating circumstance…" Heller paused, for during the whole time he had been speaking, Hisst had been mouthing words. He was not talking very loudly. Heller made a gesture to the captain of marines and the man produced a small electronic speaker and held it close to Hisst's mouth. Hisst's voice was very strange. He was saying, "The angels are calling. Please give me a fix. Oh, hear what the angels say. Give me a fix. The angels are calling. Please give me a fix. Oh, hear what the angels say. Give me a fix…"