I was lying in a clean bed in a sunny room, propped up on pillows. It was a little like another room I had awakened in not so long before, but there was one important difference. Barbro sat beside my bed, knitting a ski stocking from red wool. Her hair was piled high on her head, and the sun shone through it, coppery red. Her eyes were hazel, and her features were perfect, and I liked lying there looking at her. She had come every day since my return to the Imperium, and read to me, talked to me, fed me soup and fluffed my pillows. I was enjoying my convalescence. "If you are good, Brion," Barbro said, "and eat all of your soup today, perhaps by tomorrow evening you will be strong enough to accept the king's invitation." "OK," I said. "It's a deal." "The Emperor Ball," Barbro said, "is the most brilliant affair of the year and all the three kings and the Emperor with their ladies will be there together." I didn't answer; I was thinking. There seemed to be something I wasn't figuring out. I had been leaving all the problems to the Intelligence men, but I knew more than they did about Bale. I thought of the last big affair, and the brutal attack. I suspected that this time every man would wear a slug-gun under his braided cuff. But the fight on the floor had been merely a diversion, designed to allow the crew to set up an atomic bomb. I sat bolt upright. That bomb had been turned over to Bale. There would be no chance of surprise attack from a shuttle this time, with alert crews watching around the clock for traces of unscheduled MC activity; but there was no need to bring a bomb in. Bale had one here. "What is it, Brion?" Barbro asked, leaning forward. "What did Bale do with that bomb?" I said. "The one they tried to set off at the dance. Where is it now?" "I don't know. It was turned over to Inspector Bale...." "When do the royal parties arrive for the Emperor Ball?" I asked. "They are already in the city," Barbro said, "at Drottningholm." I felt my heart start to beat a little faster. Bale wouldn't let this opportunity pass. With the three kings here in the city, and an atomic bomb hidden somewhere, he had to act. At one stroke he could wipe out the leadership of the Imperium, and follow-up with a full-scale assault; and against his atomic weapons, the fight would be hopeless. "Call Manfred, Barbro," I said. "Tell him that bomb's got to be found fast. The kings will have to be evacuated from the city; the ball will have to be cancelled...." Barbro spoke into the phone, looked back at me. "He has left the building, Brion," she said. "Shall I try to reach Herr Goering?" "Yes," I said. I started to tell her to hurry, but she was already speaking rapidly to someone at Goering's office. Barbro was quick to catch on. "He also is out," Barbro said. "Is there anyone else?"