Another interminable hour passed, during which he several times repeated the operation with collar and cuffs, all the while envying the guards their ability to remain in one position like frozen statues, seemingly carved from the living rock of the palace. At last, just when he had resigned himself to the probability of spending the night in the anteroom, the inner door swung open and a chamberlain beckoned. "Prince Kahl will grant you a moment now." Sam bowed his thanks, and followed the man into Kahl's chambers. "Ah, my friend from the southern kingdoms!" Prince Kahl was a lean, saturnine individual, uncomfortably aware that the prime of life was slipping through his grasp while his father obstinately held onto the throne. It was Kahl's considered opinion that the old man had lived long enough. It rankled him to realize that he had held the same opinions as a youth barely out of his teens. The thirty intervening years had been spent devising and trying methods to assure his succession; unfortunately his father had twenty years before that to safeguard his own rule. "How go the southern kingdoms, my friend?" Kahl waved a particularly enticing fruit as Carter stopped short, a dozen paces away. "Tolerably well, your graciousness." He neglected to add that it had been nearly a year since he had visited the supposed lands of his birth. Kahl was fully aware how long Carter had been kept cooling his heels. Palace protocol dictated how long foreign visitors might be kept waiting. But even visiting royalty could not hope for an audience in less than a month's time. In his role as ambassador, Carter was happy that a year was all he had been kept waiting. * * * * * "Your lord and master's gifts were received," said Kahl. "You may inform him of my royal gratitude." "My humble thanks, your graciousness." Sam's mouth watered as Kahl polished off the one fruit and selected another from a platter born by a manservant. Despite his now-long stay on the planet, Sam still could not understand why women were given no role at all in society, even as slaves. "Not at all, not at all," said Kahl. "Now tell me. What is it that brought you so far from your home lands to grace my humble presence?" "The usual business of politic, your graciousness," said Sam, growing weary of the necessity to repeat the title with every reply to Kahl's words. He also wished for a chair, despite the fact that he had been sitting all afternoon. He felt like a naughty schoolchild, standing always in the man's presence. "Trade treaties, mutual armament pacts, the like." "Ummm, so. You've discussed them with my ministers?"