Besides, he didn't want to raid Marduk. A raid, if successful, would yield immense treasures, but cause a hundred, even a thousand, times as much destruction, and he didn't want to destroy anything civilized. The landing stages of the palace were crowded when he and Prince Bentrik landed, and, at a discreet distance, swarms of air-vehicles circled, creating a control problem for the police. Parting from Bentrik, he was escorted to the suite prepared for him; it was luxurious in the extreme but scarcely above Sword-World standards. There were a surprising number of human servants, groveling and fawning and getting underfoot and doing work robots could have been doing better. What robots there were were inefficient, and much work and ingenuity had been lavished on efforts to copy human form to the detriment of function. After getting rid of most of the superfluous servants, he put on a screen and began sampling the newscasts. There were telescopic views of the _Nemesis_ from some craft on orbit nearby, and he watched the officers and men of the _Victrix_ being disembarked; there were other views of their landing at some naval installation on the ground, and he could see reporters being chevied away by Navy ground-police. And there was a wide range of commentary opinion. The Government had already denied that, (1) Prince Bentrik had captured the _Nemesis_ and brought her in as a prize, and, (2) the Space Vikings had captured Prince Bentrik and were holding him for ransom. Beyond that, the Government was trying to sit on the whole story, and the Opposition was hinting darkly at corrupt deals and sinister plots. Prince Bentrik arrived in the midst of an impassioned tirade against pusillanimous traitors surrounding his Majesty who were betraying Marduk to the Space Vikings. "Why doesn't your Government publish the facts and put a stop to that nonsense?" Trask asked. "Oh, let them rave," Bentrik replied. "The longer the Government waits, the more they'll be ridiculed when the facts are published." Or, the more people will be convinced that the Government had something to hush up, and had to take time to construct a plausible story. He kept the thought to himself. It was their government; how they mismanaged it was their own business. He found that there was no bartending robot; he had to have a human servant bring drinks. He made up his mind to have a few of the _Nemesis_ robots sent down to him. * * * * * The formal presentation would be in the evening; there would be a dinner first, and because Trask had not yet been formally presented, he couldn't dine with the King, but because he was, or claimed to be, Viceroy of Tanith, he ranked as a chief of state and would dine with the Crown Prince, to whom there would be an informal introduction first.