"Mike?" Cortin asked. "Agreed. Though His Majesty's not likely to either do it or be willing for you to, despite--" He broke off, glancing at the Imperial, and finished, "the regard he holds you in personally." Cortin grimaced. "True; His Majesty's even more apprehensive about the Empire than I am. That means it's up to me." Odeon nodded. "I agree." "Good." Cortin turned her attention to the Imperial. "Now, Miss Conley, how do I go about contacting your Emperor?" "You call the Palace--you must have ultrawave?" "Yes. We avoid transmitting on your frequencies, of course, but we can use them; we do monitor. I believe your contact channel is One?" "Yes, sir. Do you know the access codes?" "No; do you?" "Of course. I can punch them in for you, if you'd like." "I'd appreciate that." Cortin led the younger woman to a small table beside the door; it held both a telephone and one of the rare private ultrawave terminals. "Go ahead." Conley did so, rapidly going through a number of screens till she got one that seemed to read "Palace" in the odd Imperial English letters. "Okay, Colonel. When Palace Comm answers, explain to them; they'll probably transfer you to someone in the Admin Service, but if Emperor Davis was given our message, he may want to speak to you directly." "Thank you, Miss Conley." It was only a few seconds before the screen cleared, to show a human operator. "Palace Comm," the man said. "How can I help you?" "I am Colonel Joan Cortin, High King's Inquisitor for the Kingdom Systems. The crew of your scoutship Columbus is in my custody--" "One moment, please, Colonel," the operator interrupted. "His Majesty left orders that any communications about the Columbus be transferred directly to him." The screen blanked for several seconds, then cleared to show a lean, gray-haired man Cortin recognized from intercepts as Emperor Charles Davis. "I understand you have information about one of my ships," he said calmly. Cortin repeated her introduction, then went on. "I don't intend them any harm, Your Majesty, in spite of the fact that they intruded in our space and I fear what their arrival means for our Systems. Since we cannot resist you, I ask that you send Ranger Medart to ease your annexation of the Kingdom Systems; he seems to have done that quite well for the Sandemans." "It isn't as inevitable or as horrible as you seem to think," the Emperor said mildly, "but if you have that kind of misapprehensions about us, I agree that sending a Ranger in would be a good idea. And James Medart is our cultural specialist, so he's the logical one; he'll be on his way within the hour. Should he talk to you, or one of your Kings?"