“How’s it coming through, Karst?” Amalfi said.

“It is very hard,” the serf said. He took another pull at the tumbler.

“But once grasped, it seems to bring everything into flower at once. Lord Amalfi, the Proctors claim that IMT came from the sky on a cloud. Yesterday I only believed that. Today I think I understand it.”

“I think you do,” Amalfi said. “And you’re not alone. We have serfs by scores in the city now, learning—just look around you and you’ll see. And they’re learning more than just simple physics or cultural morphology. They’re learning freedom, beginning with the first one—freedom to hate.”

“I know that lesson,” Karst said, with a profound and glacial calm. “But you awakened me for something.”

“I did,” the mayor agreed grimly. “We’ve got a visitor we think you’ll be able to identify: a Proctor. And he’s up to something that smells funny to me and Hazleton both, but we can’t pin down what it is. Come give us a hand, will you?”

“You’d better give him some time to rest, Mr. Mayor,” the monitor said disapprovingly. “Being dumped out of hypnopaedic trance is a considerable shock; he’ll need at least an hour.”

Amalfi stared at the monitor incredulously. He was about to note that neither Karst nor the city had the hour to spare, when it occurred to him that to say so would take ten words where one was plenty. “Vanish,” he said.

The monitor did his best.

Karst looked intently at the judas. The man on the screen had his back turned; he was looking into the big operations tank in the city manager’s office. The indirect light gleamed on his shaven and oiled head. Amalfi watched over Karst’s left shoulder, his teeth sunk firmly in a new hydroponic cigar.