"Very well, Bejamel. Call the Council. Hold all witnesses for the session. Meanwhile, mobilize all the Intermediates of the warrior order, and the Scientists of the first and second orders. Every Inner Circle Scientist who is still worthy of his rank, and all Inner Circle Neophytes to be in readiness. Make a survey of robot-proctors, and coordinate all available defenses. We can at least be ready at a moment's notice. And, find out how long our present stores of food will last ... we should have enough for months! Think you can remember all this?" He purred mockingly. "To hear your Benevolence is to obey!" Bejamel replied imperturbably. And left to carry out the orders. A little smile was at the corners of his mouth, and the feral light was still lambent in his strange green eyes. He could hear His Benevolence's harsh tones as the latter told His Virgins: "Get out!" Only Estrella remained by the side of the obscene bulk. Bejamel pitied her. * * * * * Once back in the Audience Chamber, pandemonium broke loose, but with a peremptory wave of his hand and the words: "You will remain as witnesses for a full meeting of the Council tonight," Bejamel quelled them. He watched them file out with a speculative gaze. "When the sea's disturbed," he murmured softly, "creatures from the bottom rise to the top." Then he walked slowly to his own chambers, singing softly to himself, and it was as if the voice of an angel were issuing from the throat of a Gargoyle. Only one thought worried him, and that was the protracted absence of Perlac. She had been gone for days. Perhaps he had missed her in his preoccupation with duties of State, he thought. Bejamel shrugged his thin shoulders and sat down at a jewel-encrusted desk worthy of an Inner Circle Scientist ransom. Silently he began to write with an electro-stylus on a sheet of transparent plastic. Nothing showed. It was to Gualdamar, whom to give the full plenitude of his titles was Chief Guardian of the City of the Flaming Sphere, The Leader of the Intermediate Warriors, Chief Strategist, and Scientist of the Inner Circle. As Bejamel wrote, he thought with part of his mind of the many minor revolts that had occurred when the amnesiac treatment failed because of the defense against the drug that human metabolism built periodically, but nothing like this had ever happened in the annals of the Empire. Plastic Inc., as the Inner Circle taught the people to believe, was part of them, and they rose and fell together. It occurred to Bejamel that he was very old, it was indecent to thrust such a crisis on his fading intellect. The thought made his smile acidly. There was nothing decadent about that Machiavellian mind that enabled him to remain in power through decades of intrigues, pitfalls and traps, and lately, the growing enmity of his Benevolence because he would not allow Perlac to become a chattel of his Obese Effulgence in the Temple of the Sacred Flame.