A blue-uniformed Gendarme officer approached Prince Travann, drawing him away from Count Duklass and speaking briefly to him. The Minister of Security nodded, then turned back to the Minister of Economics. They talked for a few moments longer, then clasped hands, and Travann left Duklass with his face wreathed in smiles. The Gendarme officer accompanied him as he approached.
“Your Majesty, this is Colonel Handrosan, the officer who handled the affair at the University.”
“And a very good piece of work, colonel.” He shook hands with him. “Don’t be surprised if it’s remembered next Honors Day. Did you bring Khane and the two professors?”
“They’re down on the lower landing-stage, Your Majesty. We’re delaying the students, to give Your Majesty time to talk to them.”
“We’ll see them now. My study will do.” The officer saluted and went away. He turned to Count Tammsan. “That’s why I asked Prince Ganzay to invite you here. This thing’s become too public to be ignored; some sort of action will have to be taken. I’m going to talk to the students; I want to find out just what happened before I commit myself to anything. Well, gentlemen, let’s go to my study.”
Count Tammsan looked around, bewildered. “But I don’t understand—” He fell into step with Paul and the Minister of Security; a squad of Security Guards fell in behind them. “I don’t understand what’s happening,” he complained.
An emperor about to have his throne yanked out from under him, and a minister about to stage a coup d’etat, taking time out to settle a trifling academic squabble. One thing he did understand, though, was that the Ministry of Education was getting some very bad publicity at a time when it could be least afforded. Prince Travann was telling him about the hooligans’ attack on the marching students, and that worried him even more. Nonworking hooligans acted as voting-bloc bosses ordered; voting-bloc bosses acted on orders from the political manipulators of Cartels and pressure-groups, and action downward through the nonworkers was usually accompanied by action upward through influences to which ministers were sensitive.
There were a dozen Security Guards in black tunics, and as many Household Thorans in red kilts, in the hall outside the study, fraternizing amicably. They hurried apart and formed two ranks, and the Thoran officer with them saluted.
Going into the study, he went to his desk; Count Tammsan lit a cigarette and puffed nervously, and sat down as though he were afraid the chair would collapse under him. Prince Travann sank into another chair and relaxed, closing his eyes. There was a bit of wafer on the floor by Paul’s chair, dropped by the little dog that morning. He stooped and picked it up, laying it on his desk, and sat looking at it until the door screen flashed and buzzed. Then he pressed the release button.
Colonel Handrosan ushered the three University men in ahead of him—Khane, with a florid, arrogant face that showed worry under the arrogance; Dandrik, gray-haired and stoop-shouldered, looking irritated; Faress, young, with a scrubby red mustache, looking bellicose. He greeted them collectively and invited them to sit, and there was a brief uncomfortable silence which everybody expected him to break.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said, “we want to get the facts about this affair in some kind of order. I wish you’d tell me, as briefly and as completely as possible, what you know about it.”
“There’s the man who started it!” Khane declared, pointing at Faress.
“Professor Faress had nothing to do with it,” Colonel Handrosan stated flatly. “He and his wife were in their apartment, packing to move out, when it started. Somebody called him and told him about the fighting at the stadium, and he went there at once to talk his students into dispersing. By that time, the situation was completely out of hand; he could do nothing with the students.”
“Well, I think we ought to find out, first of all, why Professor Faress was dismissed,” Prince Travann said. “It will take a good deal to convince me that any teacher able to inspire such loyalty in his students is a bad teacher, or deserves dismissal.”
“As I understand,” Paul said, “the dismissal was the result of a disagreement between Professor Faress and Professor Dandrik about an experiment on which they were working. I believe, an experiment to fix more exactly the velocity of accelerated subnucleonic particles. Beta micropositos, wasn’t it, Chancellor Khane?”
Khane looked at him in surprise. “Your Majesty, I know nothing about that. Professor Dandrik is head of the physics department; he came to me, about six months ago, and told me that in his opinion this experiment was desirable. I simply deferred to his judgment and authorized it.”
“Your Majesty has just stated the purpose of the experiment,” Dandrik said. “For centuries, there have been inaccuracies in mathematical descriptions of subnucleonic events, and this experiment was undertaken in the hope of eliminating these inaccuracies.” He went into a lengthy mathematical explanation.
“Yes, I understand that, professor. But just what was the actual experiment, in terms of physical operations?”
Dandrik looked helpless for a moment. Faress, who had been choking back a laugh, interrupted:
“Your Majesty, we were using the big turbo-linear accelerator to project fast micropositos down an evacuated tube one kilometer in length, and clocking them with light, the velocity of which has been established almost absolutely. I will say that with respect to the light, there were no observable inaccuracies at any time, and until the micropositos were accelerated to 16.067543333⅓ times light-speed, they registered much as expected. Beyond that velocity, however, the target for the micropositos began registering impacts before the source registered emission, although the light target was still registering normally. I notified Professor Dandrik about this, and—”
“You notified him. Wasn’t he present at the time?”
“No, Your Majesty.”
“Your Majesty, I am head of the physics department of the University. I have too much administrative work to waste time on the technical aspects of experiments like this,” Dandrik interjected.
“I understand. Professor Faress was
