“But—Oh, no—But why?”

“You are an honest being, too honest and too set in your views—including a belief in the League constitution’s clause that the Patrol should stay out of local politics—for us. Ruhoc is a scoundrel, yes, but he is open to suggestions if they are, shall I say, subsidized. Also, under him the present corruption and hopeless inefficiency of the Sirian military forces will continue.”

“I know—it’s one of the major points in my campaign—Cosmos, you race-traitor, do you want the Centaurians simply to come in and take us over?” Thokan snarled into the Patrolman’s impassive face. “Have they bribed the Patrol? Do they really run the League? You incredible villain, I—”

“You have your choice.” The voice was pitiless. “Think it over. My orders are simply to spend what is necessary to win Ruhoc the election. How I spend it is a matter of indifference to me.”

* * *

As the policeman approached him, Alak drew a deep breath and let one hand, hanging by his side, squeeze the bulb in that tunic pocket. The situation was suddenly desperate, and his act was of ultimate emergency.

The sphere of brain-stunning supersonic vibrations emitted by the bulb was so heterodyned that most of Alak’s body, including his head, was not affected. But otherwise it had a range of some meters, and the detective dropped as if poleaxed. They’d be out for some minutes, but there was no time to lose, not an instant of the fleeing seconds. Alak grabbed his cloak, reversing it to show a dark blue color quite unlike the gray he had been seen wearing. He put its cowl over his red hair, shading his thin sharp features, and went out the door. The change should help some when his description was broadcast. It had better help, he thought grimly. He was the only Patrolman on a planet that had just proclaimed its intentions of killing Patrolmen on sight.

Hurry, hurry!

He went down the nearest gravity shaft and out the lobby into the street. Voal’s speech had just ended, and the crowds were howling themselves hoarse. Alak mingled with them. Luan having been colonized largely by Baltravians, who in turn were descendants of Terrestrials, he was physically inconspicuous, but his Solarian accent was not healthy at the moment. Sol was notoriously the instigator and leader of the Galactic League.

The street telescreens were showing a parade of the Palanthian Guard, rank upon brilliantly uniformed rank of the system’s crack troops, and the brassy rhythm of their bands pulsed in the veins and shrieked in the head. Beat, beat, beat, yelling bugles and rolling drums and the heart-stopping slam of a thousand boots landing simultaneously on the pavement. Swing and crash and tramp, aircraft snarling overhead with their sides afire in the sun, banners flying and trumpets roaring and the long wild charge of heroes to vengeance and glory. All Luan went crazy and shouted for blood.

Alak reflected tautly that the danger to Marhal was no less threatening other systems. The Luanian battle fleet could get to Sol, say, in three weeks, and if Voal suspected just how strong the Patrol really was—or wasn’t—