He nodded. “Prince Travann, how soon do you estimate that the student procession will arrive here?” he asked.
“They’re coming on foot, Your Majesty. I’d give them an hour, at least.”
“Well, Prince Travann, will you have one of your officers see that the public-address screen in front is ready; I’ll want to talk to them when they arrive. And meanwhile, I’ll want to talk to Chancellor Khane, Professor Dandrik, Professor Faress and Colonel Handrosan, together. And Count Tammsan, too; Prince Ganzay, will you please screen him and invite him here immediately?”
“Now, Your Majesty?” At first, the Prime Minister was trying to suppress a look of incredulity; then he was trying to keep from showing comprehension. “Yes, Your Majesty; at once.” He frowned slightly when he saw two of the Security Guard officers salute Prince Travann instead of the emperor before going away. Then he turned and hurried toward the Octagon Tower.
The officer who had gone to the aircar to use the radio returned and reported that Colonel Handrosan was bringing the Chancellor and both professors from the University in his command-car, having anticipated that they would be wanted. Paul nodded in pleasure.
“You have a good man there, Prince,” he said. “Keep an eye on him.”
“I know it, Your Majesty. To tell the truth, it was he who organized this march. Thought they’d be better employed coming here to petition you than milling around the University getting into further mischief.”
The other officer also returned, bringing a portable viewscreen with him on a contragravity-lifter. By this time, the Bench of Counselors and the three off-planet guests had become anxious and left the luncheon pavilion in a body. The Counselors were looking about uneasily, noticing the black uniformed Security Guards who had left the troop carrier and were taking position by squads all around the emperor. First Citizen Yaggo, and King Ranulf and Lord Koreff, also seemed uneasy. They were avoiding the proximity of Paul as though he had the green death.
The viewscreen came on, and in it the city, as seen from an aircar at two thousand feet, spread out with the Palace visible in the distance, the golden pile of the Octagon Tower jutting up from it. The car carrying the pickup was behind the procession, which was moving toward the Palace along one of the broad skyways, with Gendarmes and Security Guards leading, following and flanking. There were a few Imperial and planetary and school flags, but none of the quantity-made banners and placards which always betray a planned demonstration.
Prince Ganzay had been gone for some time, now. When he returned, he drew Paul aside.
“Your Majesty,” he whispered softly, “I tried to summon Army troops, but it’ll be hours before any can get here. And the Militia can’t be mobilized in anything less than a day. There are only five thousand Army Regulars on Odin, now, anyhow.”
And half of them officers and noncoms of skeleton regiments. Like the Navy, the Army had been scattered all over the Empire—on Behemoth and Amida and Xipetotec and Astarte and Jotunnheim—in response to calls for support from Security.
“Let’s have a look at this rioting, Prince Travann,” one of the less decrepit Counselors, a retired general, said. “I want to see how your people are handling it.”
The officers who had come with Prince Travann consulted briefly, and then got another pickup on the screen. This must have been a regular public pickup, on the front of a tall building. It was a couple of miles farther away; the Palace was visible only as a tiny glint from the Octagon Tower, on the skyline. Half a dozen Security aircars were darting about, two of them chasing a battered civilian vehicle and firing at it. On rooftops and terraces and skyways, little clumps of Security Guards were skirmishing, dodging from cover to cover, and sometimes individuals or groups in civilian clothes fired back at them. There was a surprising absence of casualties.
“Your Majesty!” the old general hissed in a scandalized whisper. “That’s nothing but a big fake! Look, they’re all firing blanks! The rifles hardly kick at all, and there’s too much smoke for propellant-powder.”
“I noticed that.” This riot must have been carefully prepared, long in advance. Yet the student riot seemed to have been entirely spontaneous. That puzzled him; he wished he knew just what Yorn Travann was up to. “Just keep quiet about it,” he advised.
More aircars were arriving, big and luxurious, emblazoned with the arms of some of the most distinguished families in Asgard. One of the first to let down bore the device of Duklass, and from it the Minister of Economics, the Minister of Education, and a couple of other Ministers, alighted. Count Duklass went at once to Prince Travann, drawing him away from King Ranulf and Lord Koreff and talking to him rapidly and earnestly. Count Tammsan approached at a swift half-run.
“Save Your Majesty!” he greeted, breathlessly. “What’s going on, sir? We heard something about some petty brawl at the University, that Prince Ganzay had become alarmed about, but now there seems to be fighting all over the city. I never saw anything like it; on the way here we had to go up to ten thousand feet to get over a battle, and there’s a vast crowd on the Avenue of the Arts, and—” He took in the Security Guards. “Your Majesty, just what is going on?”
“Great and frightening changes.” Count Tammsan started; he must have been to a psi-medium, too. “But I think the Empire is going to survive them. There may even
