 How many Viceroys are neither Vegan nor Sundan?
The sight of an Earthman on Vega III, where it was impossible for an outlander to be, brought angry crowds to surround John Crownwall as he strode toward the palace of Viceroy Tronn Ffallk, ruler of Sector XII of the Universal Holy Empire of Sunda. A pair of guards, their purple hides smoothly polished and gleaming with oil, crossed their ceremonial pikes in front of him as he approached the entrance. Behind him stood a heavy and pompous appearing Vegan in lordly trappings. "But then I'm told you're an Earthling. But you did come, so I can tell you that although I am the leader of one of the mightiest peoples in the Galaxy, whereas there are scarcely six billions of you squatting on one minor planet, we still need each other. "I'm Viceroy of one of the hundred Sectors of the Empire. I rule over a total of a hundred Satrapies; these average about a hundred Provinces each. Provinces consist, in general, of about a hundred Clusters apiece, and every Cluster has an average of a hundred inhabited solar systems. There are more inhabited planets in the Galaxy than there are people on your single world. I, personally, rule three hundred trillion people, half of them of my own race. "You upstart Earthlings are a strange and a frightening race," he said. There was even serious discussion of destroying Earth out of hand, while it is still possible. There were at that time three different but similar racial strains of pulpy bipeds, numbering a total of perhaps a hundred thousand individuals. While these creatures could by no means be classed among the intelligent races, there was a general expectation, which we reported to the Sunda, that they would some day come to be numbered among the Servants of the Emperor. The men of Earth had decided that it should work in theory. To do so, said their theory, would usually—seven point three four times out of 10—destroy the ship, and everything in space for thousands of miles around, in a ravening burst of raw energy. They had quickly located a dozen planets, and one that looked enough like Earth to be its twin sister. Two weeks later, while they were still several planetary diameters from their destination, they had been shocked to find more than two score alien ships of space closing in on them—ships that were swifter and more maneuverable than their own. Although far within the dangerous influence of a planetary mass, they had again activated the distorter drive, and they had beaten the odds.
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