Part 6 (1/2)

V

Thewas at the Academy; when Conn and his father arrived, they found the central hall under the topside landing stage crowded Kurt Fawzi and Professor Kellton had constituted themselves a reception committee Franz Veltrin was in evidence with his audiovisual recorder, and Colonel Zareff was leaning on his silver-headed sword cane To a group ofheatedly Lorenzo Menardes, the distiller, and Lester Dawes, the banker, and Morgan Gatworth, the lawyer, talking to Judge Ledue About four times as many as had been in Fawzi's office the afternoon before

Finally, everybody was shepherded into a faculty conference roo table, and a shorter one T-wise at one end Fawzi and Kellton conducted the to preside, Kellton because it was his Acade citizen, and because he had coard Merlin as his own private project After everybody else was seated, the two rival chair, ”Let's coularly,” and Kellton was saying, ”Gentlemen, please; let me have your attention”

If either of theot to his feet again

”Soh to cut through the babble at the long table ”Would you take the chair, Judge Ledue?”

That stopped it Neither of thee of the Gordon Valley court

”Excellent suggestion, Conn Judge, will you preside?” Professor Kellton, who had seen hi out to Fawzi, asked Fawzi threw one quick look around, estie You're the logical chaire Ledue took the chair, looked around for soht

”Young Mr Conn Maxwell, who has just returned froan Then, having established that, he took the next ten , he wound up with: ”Now, only about a dozen of us were at the infor in Mr Fawzi's office, yesterday Conn, would you please repeat what you told us? Elaborate as you see fit”

Conn rose He talked briefly about his studies on Terra to qualify hi the wealth of abandoned and still undiscovered Federation war material and the iving clues to exact locations The spaceport; the underground duplicate Force Coround arsenals and shops and supply depots Everybody ed, even his father; he hadn't had time to tell him more than a fraction of it

Finally, so table interrupted:

”Well, Conn; how about Merlin? That's e're interested in”

Wade Lucas snorted indignantly

”He's telling you about real things, things worth millions of sols, and you want hiry outcry nobody actually shouted ”_To the stake with the blasphe loudly for order

”I don't know the exact location of Merlin” Conn strove to make himself heard ”The whole subject's classified top secret But I am certain that Merlin exists, if not on Poictesme then somewhere in the Alpha System, and I am equally certain that we can find it”

Cheers He waited for the hubbub to subside Lucas was trying to yell above it

”You ad about this so-called Merlin, but you're still certain it exists?”

”Why are you certain it doesn't?”

”Why, the whole thing's absurdly fantastic!”

”Maybe it is, to a layman like you I studied computers, and it isn't to ainst space attack you were telling us about I think Colonel Zareff, here, who served in the Alliance Army, will bear me out that such an attack was plainly iree, then realized that he was aiding and co,” he said ”What do you expect, with General Headquarters thirty parsecs fro?”