"... by changing the name of the Page Royal School to the Hisst Royal School."

God, thought Madison, he isn't even blinking. He's just sitting there! Can't he see I've built in a name association so people will think of him as Royal? Yet, no sign.

There were pictures of the school and past classes, then a picture of the school as it had been today. (Bleep)! It looked a bit shabbier! It was a round pillbox of a build­ing enclosing a hidden sports field; big enough, but some of the blue and red ropes, in stone, had gaps in them and there was even a broken window!

But the cameraman, even though his camera was unsteady, had opened up the view and there were the two lines of waiting Lords!

Martial music!

And here came Hisst striding along to go between the twin lines of waiting Lords, each Lord flanked by a son or a page. They were pretty drugged-up Lords but at this distance one missed it.

NOW, right here, this was the tricky part! If the cameraman erred in any way, Madison was dead, dead, dead!

Hisst strode between the two lines.

THE FIRST ONES BOWED!

Then, as Hisst passed, there was bow and bow and bow. The sons and pages were tugging at their sleeves and every Lord was bowing very low.

Madison was watching so closely he was almost losing his eyeballs. One slightest slip of that camera and he would be executed! And the cameraman had been drunk!

Hisst was through the lines. But it wasn't over yet. Hisst would be walking that path again presently at Madison's utmost peril.

On the screen, Hisst stepped into the path of the illusion projector. A technician turned it on. And the electronic illusion of Hisst, two hundred feet tall, like a gigantic red Devil, seemed to pat the top of the school and the speakers boomed out as he blessed it.

Screams of cheers racketed. Totally and only boys, and piping and shrill. Were some of them more like animal calls?

One could not tell what Hisst, there at his desk, thought of any of it. No client reaction! Had Hisst seen something Madison had missed? Oh, pray the Lord, no!

Hisst was walking back now. The martial music banged and throbbed. Once more he had to pass between the lines of the waiting Lords.

Would they bow?

Would the cameraman slip?

Ah, the first two Lords bowed, then the second two, then the third pair.... Madison was watching every inch of that way like a hawk-or more like a chicken that any instant could get its head cut off.

Every pair of Lords bowed!

Hisst climbed into his local ground car on the screen.

The scene shifted to a cathedral and the announcer said, "We will now bring you to Casterly Church for afternoon vespers."

It was over.

Madison, however, knew that his own trial was not. The client may or may not have detected something Madison had not seen. The client reaction was everything!

Lombar roused himself. He pointed at the screen and said, "Play that again!" Was he angry? Was he pleased? Had he suspected?

Madison suffered the agonies of the damned while the strip ran through once more.

Then Lombar uttered a shuddering sigh. He said, "They bowed to me."

Then he sat there for a while.

Then he said, "They bowed to me, Lombar Hisst, a commoner."

Then he shook his head. He said, "If I hadn't been there myself, I would never credit it!"

Then he sort of rotated his head and blinked his eyes and said, "Lords? Bowing to a commoner?" Then, "It's never happened before in the whole 125,000 years of Voltar history!"

Then he was blinking rapidly. "It can only mean one thing. They knew about the angels!"

"Well, I wouldn't count on them bowing all the time," said Madison. "After all, we have to prepare the minds of the people to eventually accept you as Emperor."

"Yes," said Hisst. "Yes. We have to prepare their minds." And he was off into some daydream, spinning in who-knew-what part of the universe.

Madison let him spin for a little while but, after all, this was a client and he had to close.

"So you can now honor your promise to me," said Madison. "An unlimited budget and a totally free hand."

That brought Lombar out of his spin. He fixed Madison with a stare. The yellow lights in his yellow eyes were strange. "You can't have a budget. Only a department or section can have a budget. And it would take a Royal order to create a new one." He checked him­self. He must never come so close to saying that there is no emperor or seal back of that door. "His Majesty is far too ill."

"But you promised unlimited funds!" said Madison. "You said if the Lords bowed..."

Lombar was shaking his head, annoyed. "Why are you making me listen to you? I don't have to listen to people."

"It's because the people have to listen," said Madi­son. "To BELIEVE you should be Emperor, they have to listen and I have to see that they listen to the right things and get whipped up about it. It will take PR and it will take time to create the favorable climate. And PR costs MONEY!"

"Money," said Lombar. "I can only authorize pay. That's why nobody gets paid much in the Apparatus. I can't authorize budgets for departments that don't exist!"

"Then," said Madison, "as you are a man of your word and worthy to be Emperor because of that, authorize unlimited pay."

"WHAT?"

"You saw the Lords bow."

Lombar suddenly blinked and began to nod, sort of bowing himself. Madison slid his identoplate across the desk. He saw a basket of forms and found "Change of Pay." He wrote "UNLIMITED" on it and slid it to Lombar.

Lombar looked at it and then filled it out and stamped it with Madison's identoplate and then found his own in his hand and stamped again.

Madison already had the other order written and he slid it under Lombar's identoplate and it came down on it. The order said:

J. Walter Madison, in all matters of PR, is to have an absolutely free hand with material, equipment and personnel, and no further authorization required.

Lombar Hisst

Chief of the Apparatus and Spokesman for His Majesty, Cling the Lofty.

Madison knew the man was hooked now in more ways than one. It was time to split with his spoils.

He got out into the hall and out of sight and then leaned weakly against a door, for he felt his knees would give way.

It was an awfully good thing Hisst never listened to anybody.

And who would tell him anyway?

In fact, who knew what the swindle was? Everyone else, watching, would have thought Hisst would know.

The cameraman had made it! He had not missed.

Right back of Hisst, in the golden dress of a page, amongst the crowd of boys, had come Teenie!

In the whole walk in and the whole walk out, she had been right back of Hisst, but cut out of the frame.

The Lords had been alerted by their pages.

They had been bowing to Queen Teenie, not to Lom­bar Hisst!

Madison's knees stopped shaking.

He clutched his goodies to his bosom and sped out of the palace.

Though distant still, victory beckoned loud and clear just over the horizon.

HE HAD HIS CHANCE AT HELLER!

Wild exultation began to pound through him as he finally believed himself that it was true!

HE WAS THE ABSOLUTE CZAR OF PR ON VOLTAR!

Lombar seemed to have forgotten about him. The chief went over to the Homeview and fed the strip back in. He sat down on a stool before it, cushioned his jaw in his cupped hands and began to watch it again.

Teenie, standing in the door of her palace, still clothed in the golden page's costume she had worn while walking back of Lombar, received Madison's ebullient good news somewhat grimly. She looked at the authorizations and gave them back.

"All right, all right, Madison. We've got it this far. Now you better start delivering. You can't hang around here and get anything done now. I want Gris's head and I want it bad-rotting preferred. So roll up your sleeves and start sweating!"