"No?" Terri shouted, starting up from his chair. "What do you mean by no? Can't you say anything but 'no'?" A rage possessed him. He flung himself forward two furious steps to stand threateningly over the aged figure. "You doddering idiot! Say what you want, and quickly! My two hours are nearly up. I'll be missed. They'll be here in a few minutes--the Bureau Guards. They'll crack the room shield. They'll rescue me. And they'll take you into custody. To be questioned. To be executed. At my order. Do you understand? Your life depends on me." After a little, the old man chuckled again. "Yes," he muttered, in a high-pitched old voice. "That's the way it'll be." Terri stared at him. "You don't seem to understand. You're going to die." "Oh yes," said the old man, nodding his head indulgently. "I'll die. But I'm an old man. I'd die anyway in a year or so--maybe in a day or so. But for you--for a young man like you--the up and coming young governmental with everything to lose--" he leered slyly at Terri. "Your death won't be so easy for you to take." "I die?" echoed Terri, stupefied. "But I'm not going to die. They're coming to _rescue_ me." "Oh, are they?" said the old man, ironically. "Of course!" said Terri. "Of course, why shouldn't they?" The old man winked one faded eye portentously. "Fine young man," he said. "Up and coming young man. Brilliant. Never a thought for the people he trampled on the way up the ladder. Dear me, no." "What do you mean?" said Terri. The old eyes, looking up suddenly, pierced him. "Do you remember Kilaren?" "K-Kilaren?" "Kilaren," recited the old man as if quoting from a newspaper. "The beautiful young secretary of a provincial governor whose lecherous and unnatural pursuit drove her to suicide. So that one day to escape the governor, she jumped or fell from a high window. And the people of the province, who had for a long time heard ugly stories and rumors, finally mobbed the office and lynched the governor, hanging him from the same window from which the girl had jumped. They said that even the fall had not spoiled her beauty, but that was probably false." The old man's words dwindled away into silence. "If so what of it?" said Terri. "What's that to do with me?" "Why, you were there. You were the governor's aide, and when the mob had gone home and feeling had slackened off, you stepped into the gap and seized up the reins of government, handling matters so skillfully that you were immediately promoted to an under-post at Government City." "What of it?" "Why it was all your doing," replied the other, in a mildly reproving voice, "the rumors, the stories, the mob, even the suicide. Poor Kilaren--a pitiful pawn in your ruthless game to eliminate the governor in your mad dash up the ladder." "I never touched her!" cried Terri, his voice cracking. "I swear it."