He shook his head, banishing the memory.
“I’ve picked up three more of Lamurk’s.”
“I had no idea they were such fans of mine.”
“Were he sure of winning in the High Council, I would feel safer.”
“Because then he wouldn’t need to have me killed?”
“Exactly.” She spoke between the teeth of her public smile. “His agents here imply that he is not certain of the vote.”
“Or maybe someone else wishes me dead?”
“Always a possibility, especially the Academic Potentate.”
Hari kept his tone light, but his heart thumped quicker. Was he getting to enjoy the buzz of excitement from danger itself?
The nude woman advanced through her parting pool of cats and made the ritual gesture of welcome to Hari. He stepped forward, bowed, took a deep breath—and slid a thumb down the front of his shirt. Off it came, then the pants. He stood nude before several hundred thousand people, trying to look casual.
The cat woman led him through the pool, to a chorus of meow ing. Behind them followed the Closet of Greeting. They approached the phalanx of Greys, who now also shucked their robes.
They escorted him up the ramps of the eroded mountain. Below he saw the legions of Greys also shed their clothes. Square klicks of bare flesh…
This ceremony was at least ten millennia old. It symbolized the training regimen which began with the entrance of young Grey Men and Women. Casting aside the clothes of their home worlds symbolized their devotion to the larger purposes of the Empire. Five years they trained on Trantor, five billion strong.
Now a fresh entering class was shedding its garments at the outer rim of the great basin. At the inner edge, Grey Men complet ing their five years were given their old clothes back. They donned them ritually, ready to go out in perpetual duty to the Imperium.
Their dress followed the fashion of the ancient Emperor Sven the Severe. Beneath extreme outer simplicity, the inner linings were elaborately decorated, all the tailor’s art and owner’s wealth expended in concealment. Some Grey Men had invested their families’ savings in a single filigree.
Dors marched beside him. “How much longer do you have to—”
“Quiet! I’m showing my obedience to the Imperium.”
“You’re showing goose bumps.”
Next he had to gaze with proper respect at Scrabo Tower, where an emperor had thrown herself to a crowd below; at Greyabbey, a ruined monastery; at Greengraves, an ancient burying field, now a park; at the Giant’s Ring, said to be the spot where an early Im perial megaship had crashed, forming a crater a klick wide.
At last Hari passed under high, double-twisted arches and into the ceremonial rooms. The procession halted and the Closet of Greeting disgorged his clothes. Just in time—he was turning a de cided blue.
Dors took the clothes while he shook hands with the principals. Then he hurried into the privacy of a low building and hastily put his simple garments back on, teeth chattering. They were neatly folded and encased in a ceremonial sleeve.
“What foolishness,” Dors said when he returned.
“All so I can get a major medium,” he said.
Then the principals ushered him out before the grand crowd. Above and below, 3D snouts on mini-flyers bobbed and weaved for a good shot.
The huge dome above seemed as big as a real sky. Of course, this limited his audience, since a majority of Trantorians could never endure such spaces. The Greys, though, could take it. Thus their ceremony had come to be the largest event on the entire planet.
Here was his chance. He had reeled away from the true, open sky on Sark, nauseated—and yet had zoomed through the infinite perspectives of the Galaxy. He had been afraid that this huge volume would again excite the odd phobias in him.
But no. Somehow the dome made the dwindling perspectives all right. Fears banished, Hari sucked in a deep breath and began.
The roar of applause penetrated even into the ceremonial rooms. Hari entered between flanking columns of Greys with the clamor storming at his back.
“Startling, sir!” a principal said eagerly to Hari. “To make detailed predictions about the Sark situation.”
“I feel people should ponder the possibilities.”
“Then the rumors are true? You do have a theory of events?”
“Not at all,” Hari said hastily. “I—”
“Come quickly,” Dors said at his elbow.
“But I’d like—”
“Come!”
Back out on the ramparts, he waved to the plain of people. A blare of applause answered. But Dors was leading him to the left, toward a crowd of official onlookers. They stood in exact rows and waved to him eagerly.
“The woman in red.” She pointed.
“Her? She’s in the official party. You said earlier she was a
Lamurk—”
The tall woman burst into flame.
Vivid orange plumes enveloped her. She shrieked horribly. Her arms beat uselessly at the oily flames.
The crowd panicked and bolted. Imperials surrounded her. The screams became screeching pleas.
Someone turned a fire extinguisher on the woman.
White foam enveloped her. A sudden silence.
“Back inside,” Dors said.
“How did you…?”
“She just indicted herself.”
“Ignited, you mean.”
“That, too. I passed through that crowd at the end of your speech and left your clothes in a bundle behind her.”
“What? But I’ve got them on.”