They passed over three more demonstrations on the way to Bocello's; each was huge, making the pro-telepath mob look like a handful-and all screaming for the telepaths' blood.

"What're we getting upset about?" Dar wondered. "We're not telepaths!"

"Try and prove that to Pohyola," Sam growled.

What with one thing and another, their nerves were in a fine state of disarray by the time the limo landed.

They stepped out into the midst of a tournament.

The knights had apparently unhorsed each other; the beasts in question were standing back, watching their masters with jaundiced eyes. The knights were hewing at each other with broadswords that went CLICK! CLUNK! whenever they met. The Green Knight wore full plate armor; his opponent wore a haubergion. Behind and above them stood a Scoreboard with two outline-drawings of a human form; whenever one of the knights managed to "wound" his opponent, the "wound" would show up on the Scoreboard as a red light, and a chime would ring the knight's number of points.

Around them stood and sat a hundred or so people dressed in the latest fashion of the fourteenth century. Or the twelfth. Or the tenth.

Or maybe the ninth. They nibbled at pasties and swigged ale, laughing and cheering, while peddlers circulated among them with food and drink, and troubadours and gleemen strolled about singing and chanting. An occasional monk stood near, inveighing against the evils of tournaments and enjoining the faithful to repent.

Lona turned to the chauffeur "Sure you didn't take us to the wrong address? Say, maybe a mental hospital?"

"Not at all," the chauffeur assured her "This is Me Bocello's house."

And there it was, rising high behind the medieval crowd in full Gothic splendor, looking more like a public monument than a dwelling. "A man's castle is his home," Dar murmured. "Mr. Bocello is entertaining," the chauffeur explained. "Just a few friends from his club."

Dar eyed the crowd. "Not what I think of as the usual plutocrat-orgy set."

"Very few of them are wealthy, sir. But all share Me Bocello's fondness for the medieval. He has gathered them to celebrate the return to Terra of, ah, in his words, 'the greatest gleeman of our age.'"

A slow grin spread over Whitey's face. "Now, that's what I call honoring me according to my own taste and style! I am more of a gleeman than a poet, anyway! Come on, folks-if the man does me honor; let's honor his doing!"

A very tall, skinny man in full ducal robes shouldered his way through the crowd with a peasant lass on his arm. "Tambourin!"

"Cello, you filthy old wastrel!" Whitey reached up high to slap the duke's shoulder "How'd you get this crowd together on only a day's notice?"

"Oh, I had a few words with their employers, and they were more than happy to oblige. You didn't think you could set foot on old Terra again without causing a festival, did you?"

"Well, I did have some naive notion about slipping in unnoticed,"

Whitey admitted.

Bocello raised an eyebrow. "What is it this time-a vengeful husband, or an irate sheriff?"

"It's more like a list, really. ..."

"Oh, is it indeed!" Horatio turned the peasant wench around and sent her off with a pat on the backside. "Off with you, child-I have a feeling we're about to be saying things that you truly want to be able to claim you didn't hear. Come now, no pouting-I saw the way you were eyeing that acrobat; deny it if you can . . ."He turned back to Whitey as the girl swept off with a blush and a giggle. "Now, then! It's been a while; perhaps you and your entourage would like a quick tour of my gardens?"

"We would indeed! Preferably out in the middle of a wide expanse of lawn, free from prying mechanical eyes and ears. . . ."

"Ah, but one can never be totally certain of that anymore." Horatio took Whitey by the arm and led him away. "They're doing such wonderful things with miniaturization these days. Still, my gardeners do, ah, 'sweep' the lawns every morning, so we've a reasonably good chance ... By the way, what did you think of Greval's latest epic?" And they were off, happily ripping apart other artists' work in the time- honored tradition of amateur critics, as they wove and dodged their way through the crowd. The gang had to scramble to keep up with them, and by the time they came out onto the open grass, Dar was winded.

Sam was starry-eyed.

Dar glanced at her, glanced again, and scowled. What was she looking moonstruck about? He glanced around quickly, but didn't see any gorgeous hunks of manhood nearby. As a last resort, he glanced back at Sam, and followed the direction of her gaze; it arrowed straight toward Horatio. Dar felt a sudden, biting jealousy, which surprised him.

"Now, then!" Horatio stopped in the middle of a wide, open field, chewed into mud at its center. "The lists are the most private place we'll find, at least until the next joust. Let's have your list. Who's chasing you first?"

"The Solar Patrol, at the moment," Whitey answered with a grin, "cheered on by a weasel named Canis Destinus."

"Canis what?" Horatio frowned. "Why is he on your trail?"

"Because I'm helping a friend." Whitey nodded toward Dar. "And this Canis guy is chasing him because he's on a secret mission of some sort. It involves getting to the Executive Secretary for a few minutes."

"I think he does have an opening on his calendar, next Thursday. ..."

Horatio pursed his lips. "Still, it's a difficult appointment to make."

"Especially with Canis trying to cancel it," Whitey agreed. "We can't be sure, mind you, but we think he's the one who's been rousing the local police against us on every planet we've been to. There must be at least three warrants out for me, along my backtrail."

"Well, that's nothing new." Horatio's scowl deepened. "Still, I expect the honor's being bestowed for the wrong reasons. What charge has he drummed up?"

"Now, we're not sure, mind you," Whitey said, frowning, "but we think he's managed to convince the LORDS that we're a bunch of telepaths, and that we've been aided and abetted by telepaths all along our route in from the marches."

Horatio stared. "You're the Interstellar Telepathic Conspiracy?"

"Well, that is kinda what we think they've got in their heads, yeah,"

Whitey muttered.

Horatio glared down at him, his face slowly turning purple. Dar stood frozen, with his heart in his throat. If Whitey were just a little bit mistaken about his old buddy, they could all wind up in prison at the snap of a finger He could fairly feel that restraining field pressing in on him from all sides already. . . .

Then Horatio blew. "Foul!" he bellowed, fingers clawing into fists.

"How foul, how fell! That the High Gleeman of scores of worlds should be hounded and harassed like a common felon! And all for the brain-sick nightmare of a diseased and petty mind! Nay, nay! I have stood and smiled, I have gnashed my teeth whiles I watched them play their petty games of plot and counterplot; I have schooled myself to patience while the reek of their corruption stank in my nostrils-but this I cannot bear! Nay, how can there be any gram of goodness biding in a sovereignty that's so riddled with malice that it dreams up excuses to harry its bravest and best!" Terra is become a stench-filled sty, a globe no longer fit for glee, a domain no longer fit for dwelling- nor can any planet be that falls within its sphere of influence!"

Whitey dug in his toes and braced himself against the gale. "Peace, now, peace, good fellow! Hope lives on yet! Even corruption has its day, and ceases, and the seeds of goodness sprout up from it, to flower again in virtue!"

"Aye, but in how many years?" Horatio glowered down at him. "Nay, centuries! I am not minded to hold my peace and bear myself in silence whiles I wait!"

Dar felt a surge of panic. Was this madman going to try a one-man rebellion, or something?

But Whitey suddenly became very casual. "Well then, if you truly feel so, flee! There be no dearth of G-type suns, nor of worlds like Terra. If you find all known worlds so swinishly unfit, go seek the unknown!

Go sail into uncharted skies and find a world to make anew, after the fashion of your dreaming!"

Dar held his breath. What Whitey was saying was, in effect, put up or shut up.

But Horatio was staring at him as though he'd spoken an idea never thought of before. "Aye," he breathed. "Aye, surely!"

He whirled away toward the house, crying, "Where are these hearts?

Where are my comrades?"

The whole group stared at his retreating back.

"I, ah, think we might want to go along with him," Whitey suggested.

"He sometimes needs restraining when he gets into these moods." He set off after Horatio.

The troupe followed, and caught up with him.

"What's the matter with her?" Whitey muttered to Dar "Huh?" Dar glanced at Sam, who was moving a little more quickly than the rest of them, gaze fixed on Horatio, eyes shining. He turned back to Whitey. "Just spellbound. Money has that effect, sometimes."

But Whitey shook his head. "Not so, or she'd have gone after me.

Would you say Sam's the impulsive sort?"

"Well ... in a way." Dar frowned at Sam, seeing her anew. "Controls it well, though."

"And Horatio doesn't have to." Whitey nodded. "That explains a lot."

Dar was glad it did, because he didn't understand a bit of it. On the other hand, he hadn't had much exposure to women who spoke his own language.

Horatio stormed up a flight of limestone steps and wheeled through French doors into his palace. By the time the crew caught up with him, he was leaning across a Louis XIV desk, glaring into a phone screen at an image of a bulky, black-haired man with a flowing beard.

"Ship?" he was saying. "Of course you can buy a ship, Horatio! The Navy has surplus dreadnoughts it would love to be rid of-but why?"

"To issue from a sty of stenches!" Horatio snapped. "What do you mean, they have ships they'd love to be rid of?"

"Always more on hand than they have buyers for After all, who'd want a retired battleship-without its cannon?"

"We would! To bear a crew of colonists to a brave new world, where we may purify ourselves of this crass materialism, and rise above the suspiciousness and greed of this technological monster of a world!"

"Horatio." Blackbeard eyed him warily. "Do you speak of founding a society based on the Society?"

"Indeed I do, Markone!"

"I was afraid that this might come," Markone sighed. "You must not confuse the pleasant fantasy of our Society tournaments and moots with the reality of the real world, Horatio. That way lies madness."

"I do not confuse them-I wish to make the fantasy become real! Think of it, Markone-your barony become a reality, your vassals and serfs forever at your call!"

Markone's eyes lost focus. "A pleasant dream, Horatio-yet nothing but a dream."

"It need not be!" Horatio insisted. "Think, man! What need would we have for all our fortunes? Each could lay the half of them away for his heirs here, and take the other half to pool, to buy a ship and equip an expedition! What could it cost? Certainly no more than a hundred billion-and we must have a dozen barons in the Society who are worth more than half of that apiece!"

Markone gazed off into space. "It might be possible, at that ... as though we were holding an extended festival abroad. . . . And 'twould be possible to return. . . ."

"Meditate upon it," Horatio urged. "Yet if 'twere done, 'twere well 'twere done quickly, Markone. You know the uncertainty of the political situation."

You could almost hear Markone's eyes click back into focus, "[/^certainty? What's doubtful about it, Bocello? Nothing but time- and that might be as short as a few days, before these petit-bourgeois politicians in the Assembly elect the Executive Secretary to the noble post of Dictator!"

"Oh, come now," Horatio purred. "I scarcely think they'd be so blatant as to give him the title."

"No, but they'll give him the power! They're primed and ready; all they need is a trigger, some threat to all of them, and they'll cheerfully sell all their freedoms for security-and ours with theirs!"

"True, true-and we know how sensitive these lowborns are to anything that threatens their positions. When all's said and done, money is secondary to them. But give them one sign that there may be someone more powerful than they, who might usurp their powers, and they panic!"

"They do indeed-which brings to mind the latest news, Horatio."

Markone glowered up at him out of the screen. "What think you of this Interstellar Telepathic Conspiracy?"

"Who could better recognize a fantasy than we? But there is a man of almost supernatural gifts there, as the grain of truth that rumor's wrapped around, Markone."

"Indeed?" Markone's scowl deepened. "What manner of man is that?"

"One you've met-the greatest bard of the Terran Sphere, Tod Tambourin. Government officials have been chasing him in here from the marches-secretly at first, but now openly, claiming that he and his band are telepaths."

"Chased Tod Tambourin?" Markone bawled. "This is too much, Bocello! They exceed excess in this!"

"They do indeed." Horatio nodded slowly, eyes gleaming.

"If they will harry such a man out of pettiness and spite, what might they not attempt? By all the stars, Bocello-do you realize that they might come a-hunting us?"

"We are logical targets for envious men," Horatio purred, "the more so since we have wealth to confiscate."

"Does it begin again, then? Must we watch the bloody flag arise, and ride on tumbrels to the guillotine?"

That, Dar thought, was overdoing it a bit-though he had to agree that there did seem to be some danger in staying on Terra just now, for anyone with large amounts of money or a taste for eccentric hobbies.

"I, for one, do not intend to learn the answer" Horatio informed his phone-screen, "at least, not from personal experience. I'll buy a ship alone, if I have to, and recruit my party guests. What say you, Markone? Will you join me?"

"That I will, and see the Baronetcy of Ruddigore established in reality!

Go buy your ship, Bocello-and don't lift off without me!"

The screen blanked. Horatio turned to his guests with a wolfish grin.

"So it begins, and they'll fall into line quickly, I assure you; the twelve great barons of the Central Kingdom. Oh, we'll have that ship bought and outfitted within a day, and be loading passengers in two!"

Whitey spread his hands. "It was just an idea."

"You can't find enough people that fast," Dar stated flatly. "Oh, maybe you twelve rich men might be ready to jump at a moment-you know you can come back any time you choose. But it's different for the ordinary people. They'll need a long time to decide."

"They will, eh?" Horatio seized a stylus and tablet from his desk and strode to the French doors. He came out onto the terrace, hands high, bellowing, "Now I cry HOLD!"

The shouting chaos of laughing and singing ceased in an instant.

"They're loyal," Horatio explained over his shoulder Then, to the multitude: "The Baronet of Ruddigore and I have decided to take ship, and ride out to the stars, to discover a world never before seen by Terrans, there to found the Central Kingdom in reality, and live as men ought, by faith and sweat and steel. We shall need villeins and yeomen, gentlemen and knights! We shall leave in two days time; any who are not with us then, will never be! Who wishes to ride? Sign here!"

He threw the tablet down into the multitude. With a roar, they pounced on it, and the whole crowd instantly re-formed into a line, each one fairly panting in his eagerness to emigrate. Food-sellers and jugglers began to work up and down the queue.

Horatio turned back to Dar with a grin. "That is the mettle of my people!"