On the tick of zero time Seaton shed his businessman’s cloak and took off. Literally. His knife swept through the throat of the nearest guard before that luckless wight had moved a muscle. He kicked the second, who was bending over at the moment, on and through the temple with the steel-lined toe of one highly special sure-grip fighting shoe.

He stabbed the third, whose throat was protected at that instant by an upflung left arm, through the left side of the rib-cage, twisting his blade as he pulled it out.

Ultra-fast as Seaton had been, the fourth guard had had time to lift his weapon, but he had not had time to aim it, or even to point it properly. He fired in panic, before his gun was pointed even waist-high. If Seaton had stayed upright the bullet would have missed him completely. But he didn’t. He ducked and sidestepped and twisted — and the heavy slug tore a long and savage wound across the left side of his back.

One shot was all the fellow got, of course. Seaton kicked the door open and leaped into the room, magnum high and ready. The noise of that one shot might have torn it, but good.

“Freeze, everybody!” he rasped, and everyone in the big room froze. “One move of any finger toward any button and I blast. This office is closed temporarily. Leave the building, all of you; right now and fast. Just as you are. Come back in here after lunch for business as usual. Scram!”

The office force — some nonchalantly, some wonderingly, some staring at Seaton in surprise — “scrammed” obediently. All, that is, except one girl who came last; the girl who had been sitting at an executive-type desk beside the door of the inner office. She was a fairly tall girl; with hazel eyes and with dark brown hair arranged in up-to-the-second “sunburst” style. Her close-fitting white nylon upper garment and her even tighter fire-engine-red tights displayed a figure that could not be described as being merely adequate.

Instead of passing him as the others had done she stopped, held out both hands in indication of having nothing except peaceable intentions, and peered around his left side. Then, bringing her eyes back to his, she said, “You’re bleeding terribly, sir. It doesn’t seem to be very deep entrance and exit holes in your shirt are only four or five inches apart — but you’re losing an awful lot of blood. Won’t you let me give you first aid? I’m a quite competent nurse, sir.”

“What?” Seaton demanded, but whatever he had intended to add to that one word was forestalled by a bellow of wrath from behind the just-opening door of the inner office.

“Kay-Lee! You shirking slut! How much more of this do you think you can get away with? When I buzz you you jump or I’ll cut your bloody—” The man broke off sharply and goggled at what he saw. He was a pasty-faced, paunchy man of forty; very evidently self-indulgent and as evidently completely at a loss at the moment.

“Come in, Bay-Lay Boyn,” Seaton said. “Slowly, if you don’t want your brains to decorate the ceiling. Did you ever see a man shot in the head with a magnum pistol?”

The man gulped and licked his lips. The girl broke the very short silence. “Whatever you do to that poisonous slob, sir, I hope it’s nothing trivial. I’d love to see his brains spattered all over the ceiling and I’d never let them be washed off. I’d look up at them week after week and gloat.”

“Kay-Lee dear, you don’t mean that! You can’t mean it!” the man implored. “Do something! Please do something! I’ll double your salary — I’ll make you a First — I’ll give you a diamond necklace — I’ll—”

“You’ll shut your filthy lying mouth, Your Exalted,” she said — quietly, but with an icily venomous contempt that made Seaton stare. “I’ve taken all the raps for you I’m ever going to.” She turned to Seaton. “Please believe, sir, that no matter who your people are or what you do, any possible change will be for the better. And I remind you — if you don’t want to fall flat on your face from weakness you’ll let me dress that wound.”

“I wouldn’t wonder,” Seaton admitted. “Blood’s running down into my shoes already and it’s beginning to hurt like the devil. So get your kit. But before you start on me we’ll use some three-inch bandage to lash that ape’s hands around that pillar there.”

That done, Seaton peeled to the waist and the girl went expertly to work. She sprayed the nasty-looking wound, which was almost but not quite a deep but open groove, with antiseptic and with coagulant. She-cross-taped its ragged edges together with blood-proof adhesive tape. She sponged most of the liquid blood off of his back. She sprinkled half a can of curative-antispetic powder; she taped on thick pads of sterile gauze. She wrapped — and taped into place — roll after roll of three-inch bandage around his body and up over his shoulder and around his neck. Then she stood back and examined her handiwork, eyes narrowed in concentration.

“That’ll do it for a while,” she decided. “I suppose you’ll be too busy to take any time today, but you’ll have to get that sewed up not later than tomorrow forenoon.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks a million, lady; it feels a lot better already,” and Seaton bent over to pick up his shirt and undershirt. .

“But you can’t wear those bloody rags!” she protested, then went on, ” — But I don’t know of anything else around here that you can wear, at that.”

Seaton grinned. “No quandary — I’ll go the way I am. Costume or the lack of it isn’t important at the moment.”

He glanced at his watch and was surprised to see how very few minutes had elapsed.

“Shall I go now, sir?”

“Not yet.” Seaton was used to making fast decisions, and they were usually right. He made one now. “I take it you were that ape’s confidential secretary.”

“Yes, sir, I was.”

“So you know more about the actual workings of the department than he does and can run it as well. To make a snap judgment, can run it better than he has been running it.”

“Much better, sir,” she said, flatly. “I’ve covered up for his drunken blunderings twice in the last two months. He passed the buck to me and I took it. A few lashes are much better than what he revels in doing to people; especially since he can’t touch me now. He knows that after taking his floggings I’d go under hypnosis and tell everything I know about him if he tried to lay a finger on me.”

“Lashes? Floggings? I see.” Seaton’s face hardened. “Okay, you’re it.” He took a badge out of his pocket, slid its slip out of its holder, and handed the slip to Kay-Lee. “Type on this your name and his rating and title and turn your recorder on.”

She did so. He glanced at the slip, replaced it in its holder, and pinned the badge in place just above the girl’s boldly outstanding left breast. “I, Ky-El Mokak, acting for and with the authority of Premier Ree-Toe Prenk, hereby make you, Kay-Lee Barlo, an Exalted of the Twenty-Sixth and appoint you Head of the Department of Public Works. I hereby charge you, Your Exalted, to so operate your department as to prevent, not to cause, the destruction of persons and of property by those enemies of all mankind the Chlorans.” He stepped to the desk; cut the recorder off.

For the first time, the girl’s taut self-control was broken. “Do you mean I can actually clean this pig-sty up?” she demanded, tears welling into her eyes. “That you actually want me to clean it up?”

“Just that. You’ll be briefed at a meeting of the new department heads late this afternoon. In the meantime start your house-cleaning as soon as you like after your people get back from lunch; and I don’t have to tell you how to act. Have you got or can you get a good hand-gun?”

“Yes, sir; there’s a very good one — his — in his desk. I was trying to get up nerve enough to ask for it.”

“It’s yours as of now. Can you use it? That’s probably a foolish question.”

“I’ll say I can use it! I made Pistol Expert One when I was eleven and I’ve been improving ever since.”