Thralian hour ten arrived. Kinnison, after a long, minutely searching inspection of the entire room, became again in every millimeter Traska Gannel, the Tyrant of Thrale. He waved a hand. The scanner before him glowed: for a full minute he stared into it haughtily, to give his teeming millions of minions ample opportunity to gaze upon the inspiring countenance of His Supremacy the Feared.
He knew that the scanner revealed clearly every detail of the control room behind him, but everything there was QX. There was not even a chance that some person would fail to recognize a familiar face at any post, for not a single face except his own would be visible. Not a head back of him would turn, not even a rear quarter profile would show: it would be lese majeste of the most intolerable for any face, however inconspicuous, to share the limelight with that of the Tyrant of Thrale while his supremacy was addressing his subjects. Serenely and assuredly enough, then, Kinnison as Tyrant Gannel spoke:
"My people! As you have already been told, my forces have won the complete victory which my foresight and my leadership made inevitable. This milestone of progress is merely a repetition upon a grander scale of those which I have already accomplished upon a somewhat smaller; as extension and a continuation of the carefully considered procedure by virtue of which I shall see to it that My Great Plan succeeds.
"As one item in that scheduled procedure I removed the weakling Alcon, and in the stead of his rule of oppression, short-sightedness, corruption, favoritism, and greed, I substituted my beneficent regime of fair play, of mutual co-operation for the good of all.
"I have now accomplished the next major step in my program; the complete destruction of the armed forces which might be, which would be employed to hamper and to nullify the development and the fruition of My Plan.
"I shall take the next step immediately upon my return to my palace. There is no need to inform you now as to the details of what I have in mind. In broad, however, it pleases me to inform you that, having crushed all opposition, I am now able to institute and shall proceed at once to institute certain changes in policy, in administration, and in jurisdiction. I assure you that all of these changes will be, ultimately, for the best good of all, save the enemies of society.
"I caution you therefore to co-operate fully and willingly with my officers who may shortly come among you with instructions; some of these, perhaps, of a nature not hitherto promulgated upon Thrale. Those of you who do so co-operate will live and will prosper; you who do not will die in the slowest, most hideous fashions which hundreds of generations of Thralian torturers have been able to devise."
XXII.
Up to the present, Kinnison's revolution, his self-advancement into the dictatorship, had been perfectly normal; in perfect accordance with the best tenets of Boskonian etiquette. While it would be idle to contend that any of the others of the High Command really approved of it—each wanted intensely that high place for himself—none of them had been strong enough at the moment to challenge the usurper effectively and all of them knew that an ineffective challenge would mean certain death. Wherefore each perforce bided his time. Gannel would slip, Gannel would become lax or overconfident—and that would be the end of Gannel.