Indirect, then.... Somehow, through Tayne himself, perhaps. Tayne had his boys. Tayne's brother had seen to that, with of course no reason given. Pressure--simple pressure. Doug wondered if the pressure was supposed to break him. He wondered what Tayne's reaction would be--and his brother's--if it did not. Easy enough to guess. If his sons' deaths at Tayne's careful arrangement were not enough to break him, shatter him, make him throw down his office, then the corpses of Kurt and Ronal--Terry and Mike--would somehow end up on the battle area occupied by his quadrant, far enough behind the front lines of fighting to convince any martial court that he had violated the Director's order, had obviously at the last moment brought his sons back within his own quadrant, where they might be in some measure protected. That was how it would be. If the pressure was not enough, then a simple frame. A simple matter of good timing. Yet if the timing should, by some miracle, go wrong.... _If the timing went wrong! God there it was!_ Suddenly, the blood was pounding through his body, throbbing in the large veins at his throat. Five minutes more and this thing would end. Three hundred seconds, four hundred strides. Then the final salute as the Prelate General left as he had come. And then thirty minutes for deployment, and the games on the northern mass would begin. But before those thirty minutes started.... It must be done just as the Prelate General's ship disappeared into the white syrup of the sky. It must be done just before the order to break ranks to prepare for combat deployment. And then of course it would be a gamble at best. But it was a chance, where before there had been no chance at all. * * * * * Five hundred thousand swords flashed in final salute as the Prelate General's glittering ship leapt skyward, trailing a satisfactorily impressive wake of flame and thunder as it ascended into invisibility. And the sprawling headquarters building was at once denuded of its steeple. The Director had taken his place in the balcony. Divinity had withdrawn, entrusting its mission at length to the obedient officer of its lay hosts. The swords were sheathed. And in a moment, the Director of the games would signal dismissal. _Now!_ Suddenly, Doug was striding from his post at the point of the flying wedge, the thin flanks of which still joined the two quadrants, heading unerringly for a point directly before the balcony itself. And as suddenly he stopped, stiffly raised his open palm in salute. His cloak fluttered in the warm breeze. "Your Very Grand Excellence! Senior Quadrate Blair wishes to report a suspected breach of command!" And he held his breath, but not intentionally, for suddenly breath would not come. His salute was returned. And the field behind him was again still as though carven from stone. "Report, Quadrate!"