And inwardly, Doug smiled an ironic, tight little smile. So funny, so tragically funny. A down-to-Earth, practical man like Congressman Douglas Blair, running for his life from a fantasy that could not possibly exist! As the people of Hiroshima had run on the day of the atomic bomb.... Their cloaks started to whip in the slipstreams of the waiting aircraft. Another ten strides and he would have been aboard the plane. But before he had taken five of them, the speeding surface-vehicle had drawn up beside them and stopped scant feet short of the plane's opening port. Cadremen leapt from it, swords drawn. And behind them came the Director himself. The formation halted as though it had suddenly struck an invisible wall. As he walked between his flanks of guards, the hulking Gundar Tayne drew his own sword. And Doug knew what the gesture meant. "Senior Quadrate Blair, as lawful husband of Madame Lisa Blair, who was taken into custody by the S-Council of Earth at 1300 hours Earth Standard Time today, I hereby place you under official arrest. Guards! Disarm this man." CHAPTER XVI Doug stood motionless as his dress sword was whipped from its scabbard, snapped across the bent knee of one of the Director's guards, and cast at his feet. A second denuded him of the wide belt and narrow scabbard which had held it. "Sir, unless you are able to cite well-founded charges for this outrageous action, I can assure you it will be reported to the Prelate General at once!" Doug bit the words out knowing that as a defensive threat they were hopelessly impotent, but he had to know what they had done to Dot. He had to know that even if they were to kill him within the next second. He sensed Tayne's presence behind him, could all but feel his sword-point at his back. The cadets, a moment before formed as a guard of honor, were suddenly in a bristling ring about him as though from some melodrama from the pages of Roman history. Their faces were impassive, their feet wide-spread, their swords hip-high, and pointed unwaveringly at him. And the sneer in the Director's voice was only carelessly concealed.