"The prosecution has advanced no details concerning Jord Parma because it cannot.
That scene you saw by Visual Record seemed phoney because Jord Parma was phoney.
There never was a Jord Parma.
This whole trial is the biggest farce ever cooked up over an issue that never existed."
Once more he had to wait for the babble to die down. He said, slowly:
"I'm going to show you the enlargement of a single still from the Visual Record.
It will speak for itself.
Lights again, Jael."
The chamber dimmed, and the empty air filled again with frozen figures in ghostly, waxen illusion. The officers of the Far Star struck their stiff, impossible attitudes.
A gun pointed from Mallow's rigid hand.
At his left, the Revered Jord Parma, caught in mid-shriek, stretched his claws upward, while the failing sleeves hung halfway.
And from the missionary's hand there was that little gleam that in the previous showing had flashed and gone.
It was a permanent glow now.
"Keep your eye on that light on his hand," called Mallow from the shadows.
"Enlarge that scene, Jael!"
The tableau bloated quickly. Outer portions fell away as the missionary drew towards the center and became a giant.
Then there was only a hand and an arm, and then only a hand, which filled everything and remained there in immense, hazy tautness.
The light had become a set of fuzzy, glowing letters: K S P.
"That," Mallow's voice boomed out, "is a sample of tatooing, gentlemen.
Under ordinary light it is invisible, but under ultraviolet light - with which I flooded the room in taking this Visual Record, it stands out in high relief.
I'll admit it is a naive method of secret identification, but it works on Korell, where UV light is not to be found on street comers.
Even in our ship, detection was accidental.
"Perhaps some of you have already guessed what K S P stands for.
Jord Parma knew his priestly lingo well and did his job magnificently.
Where he had learned it, and how, I cannot say, but K S P stands for
'Korellian Secret Police.'"
Mallow shouted over the tumult, roaring against the noise,
"I have collateral proof in the form of documents brought from Korell, which I can present to the council if required.
"And where is now the prosecution's case?
They have already made and re-made the monstrous suggestion that I should have fought for the missionary in defiance of the law, and sacrificed my mission, my ship, and myself to the 'honor' of the Foundation.
"But to do it for an impostor?
"Should I have done it then for a Korellian secret agent tricked out in the robes and verbal gymnastics probably borrowed of an Anacreonian exile?
Would Jorane Sutt and Publis Manlio have had me fall into a stupid, odious trap-"
His hoarsened voice faded into the featureless background of a shouting mob.
He was being lifted onto shoulders, and carried to the mayor's bench.
Out the windows, he could see a torrent of madmen swarming into the square to add to the thousands there already.
Mallow looked about for Ankor Jael, but it was impossible to find any single face in the incoherence of the mass.
Slowly he became aware of a rhythmic, repeated shout, that was spreading from a small beginning, and pulsing into insanity:
"Long live Mallow - long live Mallow - long live Mallow-" 15.
Ankor Jael blinked at Mallow out of a haggard face.
The last two days had been mad, sleepless ones.
"Mallow, you've put on a beautiful show, so don't spoil it by jumping too high.
You can't seriously consider running for mayor.
Mob enthusiasm is a powerful thing, but it's notoriously fickle."
"Exactly!" said Mallow, grimly, "so we must coddle it, and the best way to do that is to continue the show."
"Now what?"
"You're to have Publis Manlio and Jorane Sutt arrested-"
"What!"
"Just what you hear.
Have the mayor arrest them!