A whisper behind his chair began the last fateful action of that fatal night. "Hightee and the Master say that they are ready now." It was the Countess Krak, and she promptly slipped away. Aware that five billion lives, some of them his friends, and the future of a planet, Earth, would be determined in these coming minutes, Jettero Heller, combat engineer, not yet used to his new identity as the first Lord of the land, rose out of his chair on the dais and surveyed the turbulent room. The crowd in the Grand Council hall had swollen to nearly three thousand people. The crowds in the streets, visible on the backfeed monitors against the far wall, had not decreased but had increased. The new Emperor, Mortiiy, as was the custom, was kaving the conduct of the affairs of state to his Viceregal Chairman of the Grand Council, normally called Crown. Heller drew a long breath. It was up to him now. This would be the final stroke. He must not let down Niortiiy. He must not let down Voltar. Thin as it was, he aill hoped there was some chance for Earth: if he failed QOW, the planet would be utterly destroyed forever. He gave his gold tunic a tug and called for a cymbal dash. Into the expectant silence he said, "Gentlemen, it s my pleasure to announce that in the nearby park, my charming sister, Hightee Heller, and the Master of Palace City have arranged an entertainment for you. I suggest, and indeed request, that you avail yourselves of this invitation and repair now to that place, leaving here only the heads of the military and our new Censor." Nobody moved. It was a bad sign. A voice from the back of the room called, "Crown, Your Lordship, sir! Could I call to your attention that you have not taken up the last proclamation, the destruction of the hideous Blito-P3, Earth." He had been afraid of that. Everything depended on having no witnesses, and even then he might not pull it off. "It is true," said Heller, "that that is what we are going to take up now. But this Officers' Conference is now scaled down to a war council. Clear the room!" "No, no!" the people were shouting throughout the hall. "We want to hear!" Heller scowled at them and at the flickering cameras. "We have no guarantee that Earth has no spies on Voltar. If the enemy were permitted access to every war council, we would lose every war. CLEAR THE ROOM!" Cries sprang up. "What are you going to do?" "We are going to plan and order executed the disposition of Blito-P3, Earth. These are matters of strategy, tactics, military orders and logistics. Such discussions are not and never will be open to the public. BUT we have provided entertainment for you while we discuss and issue our orders. There are only fifteen hundred seats set up in the park; there are close to three thousand people here: I suggest you rush unless you want to stand." There was an instant exodus from the hall. Heller carefully made sure that he only had the heads of the Army and Fleet general staffs left at the table. He indicated Bis should stay. He beckoned to a door and Captain Tars Roke, arrived only an hour before from Calabar, slid in and took a place. Heller sternly told Arthrite Stuffy to sit back down when he showed a disposition to leave. The Homeview director rushed up to the dais. "Please, Crown, Your Lordship, sir, can't I just leave one camera here? What you're taking up is historical!" "No!" said Heller. "Yes!" said the director. "I have just begun to feel my privacy itch," said Heller. "In exactly ten seconds I will begin to think it has been invaded. GET OUT OF HERE!" The director fled in fright. Heller sent the guards, attendants and clerks away. He walked across the hall and barred the door himself– from within. The only sound in the vast place now came from the bank of Homeview monitors which remained, feeding back shots taken by camera crews through the Confederacy. Two new monitors lit up, showing the scene in the nearby park. A stage had been erected. There was a ring of tanks and cannon. The people were filing into the tiers of seats. Heller went back to the immense conference table: the five men there seemed small after the multitude which had just been crowding the room. He gave Captain Roke a warm handshake. "I am so glad to see you back alive, Jet, and out of the hands of 'drunks.' I was surprised to get your summons: I was dismissed, you know." "Captain," said Heller, "welcome back to post as the King's Own Astrographer. Aside from my joy at seeing you again, you are the greatest authority in the Confederacy on the Invasion Timetable. Now gentlemen, if you will scrunch up a bit toward the dais, I don't think we'll feel so lost." The five moved their seats and Heller took his place back on the dais. The men were close to him now. "Gentlemen," said Heller, "we are met as a war council, senior to the Officers' Conference, to take up the disposal of the planet Blito-P3. We will write the Royal proclamation concerning its fate. His Majesty has stated that he never wants to hear of it apin, ever." "He can't help but hear of it," said Captain Roke. "It's on the Invasion Timetables. Does this thing work?" He pressed some buttons under the board edge. The console before his seat flared up. He pushed another button and a huge display, sixty by ninety feet, glowed in the face of the horizontal expanse. "There," said Captain Roke, "you see the scheduled Voltar invasions plotted for the next hundred thousand years. They take us as near to the habitable center of this plaxy as you can get. I am sorry, Jet my dear boy, and I am truly touched at your thinking of your old teacher and giving me my post back. I would like to show my appreciation. But neither I nor anyone else can fiddle about with the Invasion Timetables. Our forefathers charted them ages ago, even before the first colonists departed from the old galaxy. These tables are balanced against expected consolidation time of new acquisitions: there is no possibility, then, of overextension. "There, right close to the top, you see Blito-P3. I'll admit that it is not the most important target on the table: it's an oddity in that there is only one inhabitable planet in the system. Militarily, it would be of minor use in jump-offs to other targets later on, and even though it isn't vital, still, there it is. The invasion… let's see… yes… 115 years from today." "And the tables have never been changed?" said Heller. "No, my boy. Your ancestors and mine were pretty competent people. The only changes which have occurred have been to delay a bit or advance the times. And that's what you're doing right now: advancing the time." "We're supposed to dispose of it. Has there ever been an occasion when a planet was simply blown up?" "Ah, yes," said Captain Roke. "Chippo. But we didn't blow it up. About thirty thousand years ago. I'll retard the screen here. See the blank? Before conquest, it developed thermonuclear devices in the absence of political stability and suffered a nuclear war that resulted in a core-boil. That was the end of it. It's on the charts now just as a mass of debris with 'spacer avoid' buoys in its orbit." The Fleet admiral said, "Well, good. There's a precedent, then, for a planet being blown off the invasion table. We're safe in that. It doesn't much matter whether it did it to itself or we did it, a target can be removed." "But I have a problem here," said Heller. "The:nain object His Majesty must have had in mind was a prevention of further contamination from this planet. I don't know of any way to blow it up without landing on it." "You are correct," the senior admiral said. "We don't have any missiles of a power to simply stand off and shoot. You have to insert charges at the inner face of the crust." "That will require an army landing," said the general. "All due respect to you, Crown, Your Lordship, sir, as a very capable combat engineer, you yourself couldn't get in there with enough explosives and drills to do it. It would require a landing in force by army troops to safeguard units of engineers. Such a landing, even with Fleet sky cover, would be opposed. Battle would be inevitable and we would, as you have pointed out, be liable to contamination. The only solution I could offer is suicide battalions." Heller was not pleased. "I don't like suicide battalions." "Well, if we are going to avoid contamination, we can't land troops and bring them back. So it has to be suicide battalions." "Let's review," said Heller, "His Majesty's instructions." And he turned on a playback button under the table edge and raced a strip back to Mortiiy. The voice of Mortiiy came forth. The six now present heard once more his exact commands. "I never want to hear of Blito-P3 again! NEVER!" and then, "Use one of those blank orders to dispose of Blito-P3, Earth, any way you see fit." Heller turned it off. "He gave me six, obviously intending the whole current situation to be calmed down. And this," he picked it up, "is the fatal number six. And it's an awful problem. You say suicide battalions, General. But the opposition might be very fierce. I think the Apparatus had a force of two and a half million men being staged for that invasion. You wouldn't venture that many as suicides. Further, the Fleet might have to land to back the Army and engineers up. That's real contamination! This is a dilemma!" "Well," said the general, "if we don't do something, we'll be in deliberate violation of orders." Noble Arthrite Stuffy spoke up. "I can assure you that if no action is taken against Earth, the population will boil right over! Look at the hour of the night! The sunlit side and the dark side of this planet both have streets packed with people. Just examine those monitors there. I'm no military man, but your problem right this minute is not with suicide battalions. It's with a possible renewal of riots! That's a very nasty mood those crowds are in." "We do thank you for your learned opinion," said Heller. He forbore to mention the role Stuffy had played in helping bring those crowds to boil. "I see on those end monitors that they're just about ready to start their entertainment. Let's watch it. Maybe we'll get an inspiration."