Ministry of Disturbance | Page 9

in precedence with King Ranulf, and
Lord Koreff has withdrawn all his objections. As far as I can see, at
present, there should be no trouble."
"Fine. I suppose you heard about the excitement at the University?"
"Oh, yes, Your Majesty. Disgraceful affair!"

"Simply shocking. What seems to have started it, have you heard?" he
asked. "All I know is that the students were protesting the dismissal of
a faculty member. He must have been exceptionally popular, or else he
got a more than ordinary raw deal from Khane."
"Well, as to that, sir, I can't say. All I learned was that it was the result
of some faculty squabble in one of the science departments; the
grounds for the dismissal were insubordination and contempt for
authority."
"I always thought that when authority began inspiring contempt, it had
stopped being authority. Did you say science? This isn't going to help
Duklass and Tammsan any."
"I'm afraid not, Your Majesty." Ganzay didn't look particularly
regretful. "The News Cartel's gotten hold of it and are using it; it'll be
all over the Empire."
He said that as though it meant something. Well, maybe it did; a lot of
Ministers and almost all the Counselors spent most of their time
worrying about what people on planets like Chermosh and Zarathustra
and Deirdre and Quetzalcoatl might think, in ignorance of the fact that
interest in Empire politics varied inversely as the square of the distance
to Odin and the level of corruption and inefficiency of the local
government.
"I notice you'll be at the Bench luncheon. Do you think you could
invite our guests, too? We could have an informal presentation before it
starts. Can do? Good. I'll be seeing you there."
When the screen was blanked, he returned to the reports, ran them off
hastily to make sure that nothing had been red-starred, and called a
robot to clear the projector. After a while, Prince Travann called again.
"Sorry to bother Your Majesty, but I have most of the facts on the riot,
now. What happened was that Chancellor Khane sacked a professor,
physics department, under circumstances which aroused resentment
among the science students. Some of them walked out of class and

went to the stadium to hold a protest meeting, and the thing snowballed
until half the students were in it. Khane lost his head and ordered the
campus police to clear the stadium; the students rushed them and
swamped them. I hope, for their sakes, that none of my men ever let
anything like that happen. The man I sent, a Colonel Handrosan,
managed to talk the students into going back to the stadium and
continuing the meeting under Gendarme protection."
"Sounds like a good man."
"Very good, Your Majesty. Especially in handling disturbances. I have
complete confidence in him. He's also investigating the background of
the affair. I'll give Your Majesty what he's learned, to date. It seems
that the head of the physics department, a Professor Nelse Dandrik, had
been conducting an experiment, assisted by a Professor Klenn Faress,
to establish more accurately the velocity of subnucleonic particles, beta
micropositos, I believe. Dandrik's story, as relayed to Handrosan by
Khane, is that he reached a limit and the apparatus began giving erratic
results."
Prince Travann stopped to light a cigarette. "At this point, Professor
Dandrik ordered the experiment stopped, and Professor Faress insisted
on continuing. When Dandrik ordered the apparatus dismantled, Faress
became rather emotional about it--obscenely abusive and threatening,
according to Dandrik. Dandrik complained to Khane, Khane ordered
Faress to apologize, Faress refused, and Khane dismissed Faress.
Immediately, the students went on strike. Faress confirmed the whole
story, and he added one small detail that Dandrik hadn't seen fit to
mention. According to him, when these micropositos were accelerated
beyond sixteen and a fraction times light-speed, they began registering
at the target before the source registered the emission."
"Yes, I--What did you say?"
Prince Travann repeated it slowly, distinctly and tonelessly.
"That was what I thought you said. Well, I'm going to insist on a
complete investigation, including a repetition of the experiment. Under

direction of Professor Faress."
"Yes, Your Majesty. And when that happens, I mean to be on hand
personally. If somebody is just before discovering time-travel, I think
Security has a very substantial interest in it."
The Prime Minister called back to confirm that First Citizen Yaggo and
King Ranulf would be at the luncheon. The Chamberlain, Count
Gadvan, called with a long and dreary problem about the protocol for
the banquet. Finally, at noon, he flashed a signal for General Dorflay,
waited five minutes, and then left his desk and went out, to find the
mad general and his wirehaired soldiers drawn up in the hall.
* * * * *
There were more Thorans on the