"It's no wonder."
"Oh, bless my soul, what shall I do?" He made a last effort at dignity. "Arta, it is the price of being a Hinriad and a Director's daughter."
"I didn't ask to be a Hinriad and a Director's daughter."
"That has nothing to do with it. It is just that the history of all the Galaxy, Arta, shows that there are occasions when reasons of state, the safety of planets, the best interests of peoples require that, uh-"
"That some poor girl prostitute herself."
"Oh, this vulgarity! Someday, you'll see-someday you'll say something of the sort in public."
"Well, that's what it is, and I won't do it. I'd rather die. I'd rather do anything. And I will."
The Director got to his feet and held out his arms to her. His lips trembled and he said nothing. She ran to him in a sudden agony of tears and clung desperately to him. "I can't, Daddy. I can't. Don't make me."
He patted her awkwardly. "But if you don't, what will happen? If the Tyranni are displeased, they will remove me, imprison me, maybe even exec-" He gagged on the word. "These are very unhappy times, Arta-very unhappy. The Rancher of Widemos was condemned last week and I believe he has been executed. You remember him, Arta? He was at court half a year ago. A big man, with a round head and deep-set eyes. You were frightened of him at first. "
"I remember."
"Well, he is probably dead. And who knows? Myself next, perhaps. Your poor, harmless old father next. It is a bad time. He was at our court and that's very suspicious."
She suddenly held herself out at arm's length. "Why should it be suspicious? You weren't involved with him, were you?"
"I? Indeed not. But if we openly insult the Khan of Tyrann by refusing an alliance with one of his favorites, they may choose to think even that."
Hinrik's hand wringing was interrupted by the muted buzz of the extension. He started uneasily.
"I'll take it in my own room. You just rest. You'll feel better after a nap. You'll see, you'll see. It's just that you're a little on edge now."
Artemisia looked after him and frowned. Her' face was intensely thoughtful, and for minutes only the gentle tide of her breasts betrayed life.
There was the sound of stumbling feet at the door, and she turned.
"What is it?" The tone was sharper than she had intended.
It was Hinrik, his face sallow with fear. "Major Andros was calling."
"Of the Outer Police?" Hinrik could only nod.
Artemisia cried, "Surely, he's not-" She paused reluctantly at the threshold of putting the horrible thought into words, but waited in vain for enlightenment.
"There is a young man who wants an audience. I don't know him. Why should he come here? He's from Earth." He was gasping for breath and staggered as he spoke, as though his mind were on a turntable and he had to follow it in its gyrations.
The girl ran to him and seized his elbow. She said sharply, "Sit down, Father. Tell me what has happened." She took him and some of the panic drained out of his face.
"I don't know exactly," he whispered. "There's a young man coming here with details concerning a plot on my life. On my life. And they tell me I ought to listen to him."
He smiled foolishly. "I'm loved by the people. No one would want to kill me. Would they? Would they?"
He was watching her eagerly, and relaxed when she said, "Of course no one would want to kill you."
Then he was tense again. "Do you think it might be they?"
"Who?"
He leaned over to whisper. "The Tyranni. The Rancher of Widemos was here yesterday, and they killed him." His voice ascended the scale. "And now they're sending someone over to kill me."
Artemisia gripped his shoulder with such force that his mind turned to the present pain.
She said, "Father! Sit quietly! Not a word! Listen to me. No one will kill you. Do you hear me? No one will kill you. It was six months ago that the Rancher was here. Do you remember? Wasn't it six months ago? Think!"
"So long?" whispered the Director. "Yes, yes, it must have been so."
"Now you stay here and rest. You're overwrought. I'll see the young man myself and then I'll bring him to you if it's safe;"
"Will you, Arta? Will you? He won't hurt a woman. Surely he wouldn't hurt a woman."
She bent suddenly and kissed his cheek.
"Be careful," he murmured, and closed his eyes wearily.
6. That Wears a Crown
Biron Farrill waited uneasily in one of the outer buildings on the Palace Grounds. For the first time in his life he experienced the deflating sensation of being a provincial.
Widemos Hall, where he had grown up, had been beautiful in his eyes, and now his memory endowed it with merely barbaric glitter. Its curved lines, its filigree work, its curiously wrought turrets, its elaborate "false windows"-He winced at the thought of them.
But this-this was different.
The Palace Grounds of Rhodia were no mere lump of' ostentation built by the petty lords of a cattle kingdom; nor were they the childlike expression of a fading and dying world. They were the culmination, in stone, of the Hinriad dynasty.
The buildings were strong and quiet. Their lines were straight and vertical, lengthening toward the center of each structure, yet avoiding anything as effeminate as a spire effect. They held a bluntness about them, yet lifted into a climax that affected the onlooker without revealing their method of doing so at a casual glance. They were reserved, self-contained, proud.
And as each building was, so was the group as a whole, the huge Palace Central becoming a crescendo. One by one, even the few artificialities remaining in the masculine Rhodian style had dropped away. The very "false windows," so valued as decoration and so useless in a building of artificial light and ventilation, were done away with. And that, somehow, without loss.