Merlin took a good five minutes to work that one out. The question had to include a full description of Merlin, and a statement of the information which must be kept secret. The answer was even more lengthy, but it was summed up in the first word: _Falsification_. "So Merlin's got to be a liar, too, along with the rest of us!" Sylvie cried. "Conn, you've corrupted his morals!" The rest of it was false data which must be taped in, and lists of corrections which must be made in evaluating any computation into which such data might enter. There was also a statement that, after fifty years, suppression of the truth and circulation of falsely optimistic statements about the Federation would no longer have any importance. "Well, that's it," Conn said. "Merlin thought himself out of a death sentence." They crowded into the lift and went down to the office below. Everybody who knew what had been going on upstairs was there. Most of them were nursing drinks; almost everybody was smoking. All of them were silent, until Judge Ledue took his cigar from his mouth. "Has the jury reached a verdict?" he asked, clinging with courtroom formality to his self-control. "Yes, your Honor. We find the defendant, Merlin, not guilty as charged." In the uproar his words released, Rodney Maxwell got to his feet and came quickly to Conn. "Flora called just a while ago. Your mother is conscious; she's asking for us. Flora says she seems perfectly normal." "We'll go right away; take a recon-car. General, will you explain things till I get back? Sylvie, do you want to come with us?" XXII It was autumn again, the second autumn since he had landed from the _City of Asgard_ at Storisende and taken the _Countess Dorothy_ home to Litchfield. Again the fields were bare and brown; all up and down the Gordon Valley the melons were harvested, and the wine-pressing was ready to start. The house was crowded today. All top-level Litchfield seemed to have turned out, and there were guests from Storisende, and even a few who had made the trip from Koshchei to be there, Simon Macquarte, the president of Koshchei Tech; Conn would always remember him in the screen threatening a whole planet with devastation. Luther Chen-Wong, the chief executive of Koshchei Colony. Clyde Nichols, the president of Koshchei Airlines. He almost bumped into Yves Jacquemont, coming in from the hall. Jacquemont's beard had been trimmed down to a small imperial, and he was wearing the uniform of Trisystem & Interstellar Spacelines, nothing at all like a Federation Space Navy uniform. He was laughing about something; he threw an arm over Conn's shoulder, and they went into the front parlor together. "Oh, Gehenna of a big crop!" he heard Klem Zareff's voice, chuckling happily, above the babble in the room. "You wouldn't believe it. Why, we had to build six new vats...."