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Tiw SQUIRE of Fife was the most important individual on Sark and for that reason did not like to be seen standing Like his daughter, he was short, but unlike her, he was not perfectly proportioned, since s His torso was even beefy, and his head was undoubtedly s that were forced into a ponderous waddle to carry their load

So he sat behind a desk and except for his daughter and personal servants and, when she had been alive, his wife, none saw him in any7 other position

There he looked the e head, with its wide, nearly lipless e-nostriled nose, and pointed, cleft chin, could look benign and inflexible in turn, with equal ease His hair, brushed rigidly back and, in careless disregard for fashion, falling nearly to his shoulders, was blue-black, untouched by gray A shadowy blue ions of his cheeks, lips and chin where his Florinian barber twice daily battled the stubborn growth of facial hair

The Squire was posing and he knew it He had schooled expression out of his face and allowed his hands, broad, strong and short-fingered, to remain loosely clasped on a desk whose smooth, polished surface was completely bare There wasn&039;t a paper on it, no communi-tube, no ornament By its very simplicity the Squire&039;s own presence was emphasized

He spoke to his pale, fish-white secretary with the special lifeless tone he reserved for mechanical appliances and Florinian civil servants "I presume all have accepted?"

He had no real doubt as to the answer

His secretary replied in a tone as lifeless, "The Squire of Bort stated that the press of previous business arrange earlier than three"

"And you told him?"

"I stated that the nature of the present business made any delay inadvisable"

"The result?"

"He will be here, sir The rest have agreed without reservation"

Fife smiled Half an hour this way or that would have made no difference There was a new principle involved, that was all The Great Squires were too touchy with regard to their own independence, and such touchiness would have to go

He aiting, now The rooe chrono spark of radioactivity had not failed or faltered in a thousand years, said tenty-one

What an explosion in the last two days! The old chronoht yet witness events equal to any in the past

Yet that chronometer had seen many in its millennium When it counted its first minutes Sark had been a neorld of hand-hewn cities with doubtful contacts a the other, older worlds The ti then, the very bricks of which had since becoh three short-lived Sarkite "eovern, for a longer or shorter interval, so worlds Its radioactive atoh two periods when the fleets of neighboring worlds dictated policy on Sark

Five hundred years ago it had marked cool time as Sark discovered that the world nearest to it, Florina, had a treasure in its soil past counting It had h two victorious wars and recorded solemnly the establishment of a conqueror&039;s peace Sark had abandoned its ehtly, and become powerful in a way that Trantor itself could not duplicate

Trantor wanted Florina and other powers had wanted it The centuries had h space, groping and reaching eagerly But it was Sark whose hand clasped it and Sark, sooner than release that grasp, would allow Galactic war

Trantor knew that! Trantor knew that!

It was as though the silent rhyth in the Squire&039;s brain

It enty-three

Nearly a year before, the five Great Squires of Sark had met Then, as now, it had been here, in his own hall Then, as now, the Squires, scattered over the face of the planet, each on his own continent, had met in trimensic personification

In a bald sense, it amounted to three-dimensional television in life size with sound and color The duplicate could he found in any moderately well-to-do private home on Sark Where it went beyond the ordinary was in the lack of any visible receiver Except for Fife, the Squires present were present in every possible way but reality The wall could not be seen behind them, they did not shih their bodies

The true body of the Squire of Rune was sitting in the antipodes, his continent the only one upon which, at the ht prevailed The cubic area ie in Fife&039;s office had the cold, white gleaht about it

Gathered in the one rooe, was Sark itself It was a queer and not altogether heroic personification of the planet Rune was bald and pinkly fat, while Balle was gray and dryly wrinkled Steen was powdered and rouged, wearing the desperate ser had, and Bort carried indifference to creature corowth of beard and dirty fingernails

Yet they were the five Great Squires

They were the top powers on Sark The lowest rung was, of course, the Florinian Civil Service, which reh all the vicissitudes that marked the rise and fall of the individual noble houses of Sark It was they who actually- greased the axles and turned the wheels of

government Above them were the ministers and department heads appointed by the hereditary (and harmless) Chief of State Their names and that of the Chief hi, but their only duties consisted of signing their na was occupied by these five, each tacitly allowed a continent by the re four They were the heads of the families that controlled the major volume of the kyrt trade, and the revenues therefroave power and eventually dictated policy on Sark, and these had it And of the five, it was Fife who had the most

The Squire of Fife had faced theo, and said to the other le planet (second richest after Trantor, which, after all, had half a million worlds to draw upon, rather than two):

"I have received a curiousThey waited

Fife handed a slip of metallite filure to another, holding it well up for each to see, lingering just long enough for each to read

To each of the four who attended the conference in Fife&039;s office, he, hi Fife, only shadows The metallite film was a shadoell They could only sit and observe the light rays that focused across vast world-sectors from the Continent of Fife to those of Balle, Bort, Steen, and the island Continent of Rune The words they read were shadows on shadow

Only Bort, direct and ungiven to subtleties, forgot that fact and reached for the e of the rectangular ie-receptor and was cut off His arm ended in a featureless stump In his own cha upon nothingness and passing through the filled

Bort reddened He drew back his arm and his hand reappeared

Fife said, "Well, you have each seen it If you don&039;t mind, I will now read it aloud so that you nificance"

He reached upward, and his secretary, by hastening his steps,

ed to hold the filrasp to close upon it without an instant&039;s groping

Fife read e were his own and he enjoyed delivering it

He said, "This is the e: &039;You are a Great Squire of Sark and there is none to compete with you in power and wealth Yet that power and wealth rest on a slender foundation You may think that a planetary supply of kyrt, such as exists on Florina, is by nowill Florina exist? Forever?

"No! Florina may be d\estroyed tomorrow It may exist for a thousand years Of the two~ it is more likely to be destroyed tomorrow Not by myself, to be sure, but in a way you cannot predict or foresee Consider that destruction Consider, too, that your power and wealth are already gone, for I dereater part of them You will have time to consider, but not too much time

"Attempt to take too much time and I shall announce to all the Galaxy and particularly to Florina the truth about the waiting destruction After that there will be no more kyrt, no more wealth, no more power None for me, but then I am used to that None for you, and that would be extrereat wealth

"Turn over most of your estates to myself in the amount and in the manner which I shall dictate in the near future and you will rereat deal will be left you by your present standards, to be sure, but it will bethat will otherwise be left you Do not sneer at the fragment you will retain, either Florina may last your lifetime and you will live, if not lavishly, at least comfortably"

Fife had finished He turned the filently into a silvery translucent cylinder through which the stenciled letters ed into a reddish blur

He said in his natural voice, "It is an anature and the tone of the letter, as you heard, is stilted and pompous What do you think of it, Squires?"

Rune&039;s ruddy face was set in displeasure He said, "It&039;s obviously the work of a man not far removed from the psychotic He writes like a historical novel Frankly, Fife, I don&039;t see that such rubbish is a decent excuse to disrupt our traditions of continental autonooing on in the presence of your secretary"

"My secretary? Because he is a Florinian? Are you afraid his s as this letter? Nonsense" His tone shifted from one of mild amusement to the unmodulated syllables of command "Turn to the Squire of Rune"

The secretary did so His eyes were discreetly lowered and his white face was uncreased by lines and unmarred by expression It almost seemed untouched by life

"This Florinian," said Fife, careless of the man&039;s presence, "is my personal servant He is never away from me, never with others of his kind But it is not for that reason that he is absolutely trustworthy Look at him Look at his eyes Isn&039;t it obvious to you that he has been under the psychic probe? He is incapable of any thought which is disloyal to ree With no offense intended, I can say that I would sooner trust him than any of you"

Bort chuckled "I don&039;t blame you None of us owes you the loyalty of a probed Florinian servant"

Steen giggled again and writhed in his seat as though it were growing gently warm

Not one of them made any comment on Fife&039;s use of a psychic probe for personal servants Fife would have been tremendously astonished had they done so The use of the psychic probe for any reason other than the correction of mental disorders or the re, it was forbidden even to the Great Squires

Yet Fife probed whenever he felt it necessary, particularly when the subject was a Florinian The probing of a Sarkite was a s at theFife did not miss, ell reputed to make use of probed Florinians of both sexes for purposes far removed froers together "I did not bring you all together for the reading of a crackpot letter That, I hope, is understood Actually I am afraid we have an important problem on our hands First of all, I ask myself, why bother only with me? To be sure, I am the wealthiest of the Squires, but alone, I control only a third of the kyrt trade Together the five of us control it all It is easy to make five cello-copies of a letter, as easy as it is to make one"

"You use too many words," muttered Bort "What do you want?"

Balle&039;s withered and colorless lips ray face "He wants to know, my Lord of Bort, if we have received copies of this letter"

"Th~s1 let hi so," said Fife evenly "Well?"