"Now." Cercy watched the screen. The Ambassador was still typing.
Suddenly, as Harrison sent home the switch, the room was engulfed in flames. Fire blasted out of concealed holes in the walls, poured from the ceiling and floor.
In a moment, the room was like the inside of a blast furnace.
Cercy let it burn for two minutes, then motioned Harrison to cut the switch. They stared at the roasted room.
They were looking, hopefully, for a charred corpse.
But the Ambassador reappeared beside his desk, looking ruefully at the charred typewriter. He was completely unsinged.
"Could you get me another typewriter?" he asked, looking directly at one of the hidden projectors. "I'm setting down a philosophy for you ungrateful wretches."
He seated himself in the wreckage of an armchair. In a moment, he was apparently asleep.
