Moddo, the Servant of Education, the Ragged Teacher of Mankind, took advantage of a pause between speakers to lean back and say to Garomma: “I have a few administrative matters to check here before we start back. May I be excused? It — it won’t take more than about twenty or twenty-five minutes.”

Garomma scowled imperiously straight ahead. “Can’t they wait? This is your day as much as mine. I’d like to have you near me.”

“I know that, Garomma, and I’m grateful for the need. But”—and now he touched the Servant of All’s knee in supplication—“I beg of you to let me attend to them. They are very pressing. One of them has to do—it has to do indirectly with the Servant of Security and may help you decide whether you want to dispense with him at this particular time.”

Garomma’s face immediately lost its bleakness. “In that case, by all means. But get back before the ceremony is over. I want us to leave together.”

The tall man nodded and rose. He turned to face his leader. “Serve us, Garomma,” he said with outstretched arms. “Serve us, serve us, serve us.” He backed out of the room, always facing the Servant of All.

Out in the corridor, he strode rapidly through the saluting Center of Education guards and into his private elevator. He pressed the third-floor button. And then, as the door swept shut and the car began to rise, he permitted himself a single, gentle, mouth-curling smile.

The trouble he had taken to pound that one concept into Garomma’s thick head: the basic principle in modern scientific government is to keep the government so unobtrusive as to appear nonexistent, to use the illusion of freedom as a kind of lubricant for slipping on invisible shackles—above all, to rule in the name of anything but rulership!