"Why, yes, sir. I——"
"Ha, no wonder!" Dandrik crowed. "Your Majesty, that man's an out-and-out charlatan! He was kicked out of the University here ten years ago, and I'm surprised he could even get on the faculty of a school like Brannerton, on a planet like Gimli."
"Why, you stupid old fool!" Faress yelled at him. "You aren't enough of a physicist to oil robots in Vann Evaratt's lab!"
"There, Your Majesty," Khane said. "You see how much respect for authority this hooligan has!"
On Aditya, such would be unthinkable; on Aditya, everybody respects authority. Whether it's respectable or not.
Count Tammsan laughed, and he realized that he must have spoken aloud. Nobody else seemed to have gotten the joke.
"Well, how about the riot, now?" he asked. "Who started that?"
"Colonel Handrosan made an investigation on the spot," Prince Travann said. "May I suggest that we hear his report?"
Handrosan rose and stood with his hands behind his back, looking fixedly at the wall behind the desk.