A brooding sadness mantled the obese face, lending it dignity and a transitory greatness. The soft echoes of the august voice ceased, and Guerlan found himself being led by members of the Inner Circle Guard back to the atomo-plane that had brought him here from Plastica. He was too dazed to think, a vast, anguished feeling of defeat and shame filled his mind, the words of His Benevolence whom he had dared to doubt, were etched in acid in his brain. But, deep in the recesses of his consciousness, something mocking, something not quite articulate, struggled to plant in his chaotic thoughts, the swiftly growing seeds of doubt. Behind him, had he only been there to see and hear, a cataract of laughter had engulfed the great Hall, and His Benevolence, surrounded by his favorites and the most magnificently beautiful girls of the empire, shook in paroxysms of mocking laughter. But Guerlan knew nothing of this. His muscles ached from the battle and his brain was awhirl. Once out in space again, he noted that a great storm was in progress. Hurtling under guard through the stormy reaches of space, he idly watched through the plane's transparent dome how lightning danced a drunken saraband. But although Guerlan strove to re-direct his thoughts, the echoes of His Benevolence's voice were like a sunset gun in his brain--final, incontestable, a sentence to the obscurity of the Second Order, and problems ... he had mentioned a specific problem. And Guerlan remembered with chill apprehension the sentence for failure to solve problems in the second order. Three failures brought a warning, five a probation and the sixth ... final judgment. The upper air of the First Level, reserved for the Scientists of the First Order, had the exhilarating quality of Burgundy. As far as Guerlan's eyes could reach, the opaline and prismatic domes of the First Level's exquisite structures extended in every direction. The light was soft and caressing, thanks to the illumination and climate conditioning of the mammoth Weather Stations. A soft, lilting melody reminiscent of the ancient ballets of another age of centuries past, was like a ripple of melodic laughter, enhancing a background of ineffable peace. But Guerlan knew how illusory all this was for him. Only enough time--a few hours to arrange his affairs and move to the Second Level had been granted him. A profound pang of regret was like a dull ache in his heart.