“What are they standing there for?” Gurgeh whispered to the drone in Eächic, low enough so that Pequil couldn’t hear. “Show,” the machine said. Gurgeh thought about this. “Show?” “Yes; to show that the Emperor is rich and important enough to have hundreds of flunkeys standing around doing nothing.” “Doesn’t everybody know that already?” The drone didn’t answer for a moment. Then it sighed. “You haven’t really cracked the psychology of wealth and power yet, have you, Jernau Gurgeh?”
