The telephone sounded, and his secretary said to him: "Mr. Sollenar, you are ten minutes from being late at the TTV Executives' Ball. This is a First Class obligation."
Sollenar laughed. "I thought it was, when I originally classified it."
"Are you now planning to renege, Mr. Sollenar?" the secretary inquired politely.
Certainly, Sollenar thought. He could as easily renege on the Ball as a king could on his coronation.
"Burr, you scum, what have you done to me?" he asked the air, and the telephone said: "Beg pardon?"
"Tell my valet," Sollenar said. "I'm going." He dismissed the phone. His hands cupped in front of his chest. A firm grip on emptiness might be stronger than any prize in a broken hand.
Carrying in his chest something he refused to admit was terror, Sollenar made ready for the Ball.
But only a few moments after the first dance set had ended, Malcolm Levier of the local TTV station executive staff looked over Sollenar's shoulder and remarked:
"Oh, there's Cort Burr, dressed like a gallows bird."
Sollenar, glittering in the costume of the Medici, did not turn his head. "Is he? What would he want here?"