“The Privy Council is not assembled,” came a bored reply. “Can’t this wait, Baron?”
Kluxm cursed silently at the insolence and stupidity of even the household help. The operator was probably one of the king’s Marklings.
“I said emergency, operator!” he emphasized, trying to keep his temper from showing. “I take full responsibility.”
The operator seemed unsure of herself, and finally decided in good bureaucratic fashion to pass the buck.
“I will transfer you to General Ytil of the Imperial Staff,” she said. “He will decide.”
Before Kluxm could even reply he heard the relay switch, and a new, male voice answered. “Ytil,” it said curtly.
The baron had even less use for imperial military men; they generally went to war with other hexes when shortages developed every few years, and invariably lost them. However, he decided that Ytil would do for the same purpose as the operator had; after he explained the situation, it was somebody else’s problem.
“I had an Entry today, one of the ones we’d been told to watch for.”
“An Entry!” Ytil’s voice was suddenly very excited. The waves were so bad that the general’s voice started to give Kluxm a headache. “Which one?”
“The one called Datham Hain. As a common Markling breeder,” he added.
Ytil’s voice still quivered with excitement, although the last plainly disappointed him. “A Markling breeder! Pity! But to think we got one! Hmmmm. Actually, this might work out to our advantage. I’ve got to go over my files and recordings of Hain at Zone, but, if I remember, he’s the greedy and ambitious type.”
“Yes, that’s what my file said,” Kluxm acknowledged. “But she was abnormally respectful and quiet while here. Seems to have adjusted to our form extremely well.”
“Yes, yes, that’s to be expected,” Ytil replied. “After all, no use antagonizing everyone. Hain’s smart enough to see the social structure and her limits in it right off. Where is she now?”
“In a rest area near my office,” Kluxm replied. “She’s on lull music and has a full stomach, so she’s out for two or three days until hunger sets in again.”
“Excellent, excellent,” approved Ytil. “I’ll call the Privy Council together and we’ll send someone for her when we’re ready. You are to be commended, Baron! A fine job!”
Sure, Kluxm thought glumly to himself. For which you’ll take all the credit.
But credit was not what was on Ytil’s mind as the general scurried down the palace corridor after terminating the conversation. He stopped in a security room and picked up a tiny, black, jewel-like object on a large chain. Carefully he placed it over his right antenna and then went down to the lowest level of the palace.
The guards weren’t very curious about him; it was normal to have high-ranking military and diplomatic people using the Zone Gate.
The Akkafian general walked quickly into the darkness at the end of the basement corridor.
And emerged in Zone.
ZONE—THE AKKAFIAN EMBASSY
The Markling receptionist looked startled as General Ytil emerged through the Zone Gate.
Each hex had a gate somewhere, which would transport anyone to Zone instantaneously, and from Zone to his home hex. There were 780 such gates to the offices of each of the Southern Hemisphere races, as well as the one master Gate for Classification through which all entries passed and the huge input-only Gate in the center. It made things very easy for interspecies contact.
General Ytil dismissed the startled exclamation and apologies of the receptionist and made his way immediately to the Imperial Ambassador’s office.
The Baron Azkfru had barely been tipped off by the clerk when the general rushed in the door. The ambassador could see the obvious excitement and agitation in Ytil’s every movement.
“My Lord Baron!” the general exclaimed. “It has happened! We have one of the new Entries as it was foretold!”
“Calm down, Ytil,” Azkfru growled. “You’re losing your medals for dignity and self-control. Now, tell me rationally what this is about.”
“The one called Hain,” Ytil responded, still excited. “It turned up earlier today over in Kluxm’s barony as a Markling breeder.”
“Hmmmm…” Azkfru mused. “Too bad she’s a breeder, but it can’t be helped. Where is this Entry now?”
“In lull sleep, safe for two or three more days,” the general told him. “Kluxm thinks I’ve notifled the Imperial Household and the Privy Council. He’s expecting someone to pick her up.”
“Very good,” Azkfru replied approvingly. “It looks like things are breaking our way. I never put much stock in fortune-tellers and such crap, but if this has happened then Providence has placed a great opportunity in our hands. Who else knows of this besides Kluxm and yourself?”
“Why, no one, Highness,” Ytil replied. “I have been most careful.”
Baron Azkfru’s mind moved quickly, sorting out the facts and deciding on a course of action with a speed that had guaranteed his rise to the top.
“All right, return to your post for now, and nothing of this to anyone! I’ll make all the necessary arrangements.”
“You’re making the deal with the Northerners?” Ytil asked.
Azkfru gave the Akkafian equivalent of a sigh. “Ytil, how many times do you need to be reminded that I am the baron? You take orders, and leave the questions and answers to your betters.”
“But I only—” Ytil began plaintively, but Azkfru cut him off.
“Go, now,” the ambassador said impatiently, and Ytil turned to leave.
Azkfru reached into a drawer and pulled out a pulse rifle. This one worked in Zone, at least in his offices.
“Ytil!” he called after the other, who was halfway out the door.
Ytil stopped but couldn’t turn. “My Lord?” he called back curiously.
“Good-bye, fool,” Azkfru replied, and shot the general repeatedly until the white-haired body was a charred ruin.
Azkfru buzzed for his guard, and thought, Too bad I couldn’t trust the idiot, but his incompetence would give the show away.
The guard appeared, and looked down at the general’s remains nervously but without curiosity.
“The general tried to kill me,” he explained without any effort to be convincing. “I had to defend myself. It appears that he and the Baron Kluxm are at the heart of a baronial revolt. After you dispose of this carrion, go to Kluxm’s, and eliminate his whole staff and, of course, the baron. Then go to the rest area and bring a Markling named Hain to my estate. Do it quietly. I’ll report the revolt.”
They nodded, and it look them only a few minutes to eat the body.
After they had left, he buzzed for a clerk.
“You will go to the Classification Gate and enter. It will take you to the North Zone. When you get there don’t leave the Gate room, but simply tell the first inquirer that you want to talk to Ambassador Thirteen Forty, and wait for that person. When it comes, tell it who you are, who sent you, and that we are ready to agree. Got that?”
The clerk waved her antennae affirmatively and repeated the message.
Dismissing her, he attended to the last detail. He flipped the intercom to the receptionist’s desk.
“The General Ytil wasn’t here,” he told her. “Understand? You never even heard of him.”
The clerk understood all too well, and rubbed out Ytil’s appearance in her logbook.
It was a big gamble he was taking, he knew, and it would probably cost him his life. But the stakes! The stakes were too great to ignore!