Sixth Column

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Calhoun buttonholed Ardmore almost as soon as he was back in the Citadel. "Major Ardmore," he announced, clearing his throat, "I have waited up to discuss a matter of import with you."

This man, Ardmore thought, can pick the damnedest times for a conference. "Yes?"

"I believe you expect a rapid culmination of events?"

"Things are coming to a head, yes."

"I presume the issue will be decided very presently. I have not been able to get the details I want from your man Thomas -- he is not very cooperative; I fail to see why you have thrust him up to the position of speaking for you in your absence -- but that is beside the point," Calhoun conceded with a magnanimous gesture. "What I wanted to say is this: Have you given any thought to the form of government after we drive out the Asiatic invader?"

What the devil was the man getting at? "Not particularly -- why should I? Of course, there will have to be a sort of provisional interim period, military government of sorts, while we locate all the old officials left alive and get them back on the job and arrange for a national election. But that ought not to be too hard -- we'll have the local priests to work through."

Calhoun's eyebrows shot up. "Do you really mean to tell me, my dear man, that you are seriously contemplating returning to the outmoded inefficiencies of elections and all that sort of thing?"

Ardmore stared at him. "What else are you suggesting?"

"It seems obvious. We have here a unique opportunity to break with the stupidities of the past and substitute a truly scientific rule, headed by a man chosen for his intelligence and scientific training rather than for his skill in catering to the prejudices of the mob. "

"Dictatorship, eh? And where would I find such a man?" Ardmore's voice was disarmingly, dangerously gentle.

Calhoun did not speak, but indicated by the slightest of smug self-deprecatory gestures that Ardmore would not have far to look to find the right man.

Ardmore chose not to notice Calhoun's implied willingness to serve. "Never mind," he said, and his voice was no longer gentle, but sharp. "Colonel Calhoun, I dislike to have to remind you of your duty -- but understand this: you and I are military men. It is not the business of military men to monkey with politics. You and I hold our commissions by grace of a constitution, and our sole duty is to that constitution. If the people of the United States want to streamline their government, they will let us know!

"In the meantime, you have military duties, and so do I. Go ahead with yours."

Calhoun seemed about to burst into speech. Ardmore cut him short. "That is all. Carry out your orders, sir!"

Calhoun turned abruptly and left.

Ardmore called his Chief of Intelligence to him. "Thomas," he said, "I want a close, but discreet, check kept on Colonel Calhoun's movements."

"Yes, sir."

"The last of the scout cars are in, sir."

"Good. How does the tally stand now?" Ardmore asked.

"Just a moment, sir. It was running about six raids to a ship -- with this last one that makes a total of ... uh ... nine and two makes eleven-seventy-one prisoners in sixty-eight raids. Some of them doubled up...

"Any casualties?"

"Only to the PanAsians --"

"Damn it that's what I meant! No, I mean to our men, of course."

"None, Major. One man got a broken arm when he fell down a staircase in the dark."

"I guess we can stand that. We should get some reports on the local demonstrations -- at least from the East coast cities -- before long. Let me know."

"I will. "

"Would you mind telling my orderly to step in as you leave? I want to send for some caffeine tablets, better have one yourself; this is going to be a big day."

"A good notion, Major." The communications aide went out.

In sixty-eight cities throughout the land, preparations were in progress for the demonstrations that constituted Phase 2 of Disorganization Plan IV. The priest of the temple in Oklahoma City had delegated part of his local task to two men, Patrick Minkowski, taxi driver, and John W. (Jack) Smyth, retail merchant. They were engaged in fitting leg irons to the ankles of the Voice of the Hand, PanAsian administrator of Oklahoma City. The limp, naked body of the Oriental lay on a long table in a workshop down under the temple.

"There," announced Minkowski, "that's the best job of riveting I can do without heating tools. It'll take him a while to get it off, anyway. Where's that stencil?"

"By your elbow. Captain Isaacs said he'd weld those joints with his staff after we finished; I wouldn't worry about them. Say, it seems odd to call the priest Captain Isaacs, doesn't it? Do you think we're really in the army -- legally, I mean?"

"I wouldn't know about that -- and as long as it gives me a chance to take a crack at those flat-faced apes, I don't care. I suppose we are, though -- if you admit that Isaacs is an army officer, I guess he can take recruits. Look -- do we put this stencil on his back or on his stomach?"

"I'd say to put it on both sides. It does seem funny, though, about this army business, I mean. One day you're going to church; the next you're told it's a military outfit, and they swear you in."

"Personally, I like it," commented Minkowski. "Sergeant Minkowski -- it sounds good. They wouldn't take me before on account o' my heart. As for the church part, I never took any stock in this great God Mota business, anyhow; I came for the free food and the chance to breathe in peace." He removed the stencil from the back of the Asiatic; Smyth commenced filling in the traced design of an ideograph with quick-drying indelible paint. "I wonder what that heathen writing means?"

"Didn't you hear?" asked Smyth, and told him.

A delighted grin came over Minkowski's face. "Well, I'll be damned," he said. "If anybody called me that, it wouldn't do him no good to smile when he said it. You wouldn't kid me?"

"No, indeed. I was in the communications office when they were getting the design from the Mother Temple -- I mean general headquarters. Here's another funny thing, too. I saw the chap in the screen who was passing out the design, and he was Asiatic as this monkey" -- Smyth indicated the unconscious voice of the Hand -- "but they called him Captain Downer and treated him like one of us. What do you make of that?"

"Couldn't say. He must be on our side, or else he wouldn't be loose in headquarters. What'll we do with the rest of the paint?"

Between them they found something to do with it, which Captain Isaacs noticed at once when he came in to see how they were progressing. He suppressed a smile. "I see you have elaborated on your instructions a bit," he commented, trying to keep his voice soberly official.

"It seemed a pity to waste the paint," Minkowski explained ingenuously. "Besides, he looked so naked the way he was."

"That's a matter of opinion. Personally, I would say that he looks nakeder now. We'll drop the point; hurry up and get his head shaved. I want to leave any time now."

Minkowski and Smyth waited at the door of the temple five minutes later, the Voice of the Hand rolled in a blanket on the floor between them. They saw a sleek duocycle station wagon come shooting up to the curb in front of the temple and brake to a sudden stop. Its bell sounded, and Captain Isaacs' face appeared in the window of the driver's compartment. Minkowski threw down the butt of a cigarette and grabbed the shoulders of the muffled figure at their feet; Smyth took the legs and they trotted clumsily and heavily out to the car.

"Dump him in the back," ordered Captain Isaacs.

That done, Minkowski took the wheel while Isaacs and Smyth crouched in the back with the subject of the pending demonstration.

"I want you to find a considerable gathering of PanAsians almost anywhere," directed the captain. "If there are Americans present, too, so much the better. Drive fast and pay no attention to anyone. I'll take care of any difficulties with my staff." He settled himself to watch the street over Minkowski's shoulder.

"Right, Captain! Say, this is a sweet little buggy," he added as the car shot forward. "How did you pick it up so fast?"

"I knocked out a few of our Oriental friends;" answered Isaacs briefly. "Watch that signal!"

"Got it!" The car dewed around and dodged under the nose of oncoming cross traffic. A PanAsian policeman was left futilely waving at them.

A few seconds later Minkowski demanded, "How about that spot up ahead, Captain?" and hooked his chin in the indicated direction. It was the square of the civic center.

"O. K. " He bent over the silent figure on the floor of the car, busy with his staff.

The Asiatic began to struggle. Smyth fell on him and pinned the blanket more firmly about the head and shoulders of their victim. "Pick your spot. When you stop, we'll be ready."

The car lurched to a stomach-twisting halt. Smyth slammed open the rear door; he and Isaacs grabbed corners of the blanket and rolled the now-conscious official into the street. "Take it away, Pal"

The car jumped forward, leaving startled and scandalized Asiatics to deal with an utterly disgraceful situation as best they might. Twenty minutes later a brief but explicit account of their exploit was handed to Ardmore in his office at the Citadel. He glanced over it and passed it to Thomas. "Here's a crew with imagination, Jeff."

Thomas took the report and read it, then nodded agreement. "I hope they all do as well. Perhaps we should have given more detailed instructions."

"I don't think so. Detailed instructions are the death of initiative. This way we have them all striving to think up some particularly annoying way to get under the skins of our slant-eyed lords. I expect some very amusing arid ingenious results."

By nine a.m., headquarters time, each one of the seventy-odd PanAsian major officials had been returned alive, but permanently, unbearably disgraced, to his racial brethren. In all cases, so far as the data at hand went, there had been no cause given to the Asiatics to associate their latest trouble directly with the cult of Mota. It was simply catastrophe, psychological catastrophe of the worst sort, which had struck in the night without warning and without trace.

"You have not set the time for Phase 3 as yet, Major," Thomas reminded Ardmore when all reports were in.

"I know it. I don't expect it to be more than two hours from now at the outside. We've got to give them a little time to appreciate what has happened to them. The force of demoralization will be. many times as great when they have had time to compare notes around the country and realize that all of their top men have been publicly humiliated. That, combined with the fact that we crippled their continental headquarters almost to the limit, should produce as sweet a case of mass hysteria as one could wish: But we'll have to give it time to spread. Is Downer on deck?"

"He's standing by in the communications watch office."

"Tell them to cut in a relay circuit from him to my office. I want to listen to what he picks up here."

Thomas dialed with the interoffice communicator and spoke briefly. Very shortly Downer's pseudoAsiatic countenance showed on the screen above Ardmore's desk. Ardmore spoke to him. Downer slipped an earphone off one ear and gave him an inquiring look.

"I said, 'Are you getting anything yet? " repeated Ardmore.

"Some. They're in quite an uproar. What I've been able to translate is being canned." He flicked a thumb toward the microphone which hung in front of his face. A preoccupied, listening look came into his eyes, and he added, "San Francisco is trying to raise the palace --"

"Don't let me interrupt you," said Ardmore, and closed his own transmitter.

"-- the Emperor's Hand there is reported dead. San Francisco wants some sort of authorization Wait a minute; the comm office wants me to try another wave length. There it comes -- they're using the Prince Royal's signal, but it's in the provincial governor's frequency. I can't get what they're saying; it's either coded or in a dialect I don't know. Watch officer, try another wave band -- I'm just wasting time on that one ... . That's better." Downer's face became intent, then suddenly lit up. "Chief, get this: Somebody is saying that the Governor of the gulf province has lost his mind and asks permission to supersede him! Here's another -- wants to know what's wrong with the palace circuits and how to reach the palace, wants to report an uprising --"

Ardmore cut back in. "Where?"

"Couldn't catch it. Every frequency is jammed with traffic, and about half of it is incoherent. They don't give each other time to clear -- send right through another message."

There was a gentle knock at the outer door of Ardmore's office. It opened a few inches and Dr. Brooks' head appeared. "May I come in?"

"Oh -- certainly, Doctor. Come in. We are listening to what Captain Downer can pick up from the radio."

"Too bad we haven't a dozen of him -- translators, I mean. "

"Yes, but there doesn't seem to be much to pick up but a general impression." They listened to what Downer could pick up for the better part of an hour, mostly disjointed or partial messages, but it was made increasingly evident that the sabotage of the palace organization, plus the terrific emotional impact of the disgrace of key administrators, had played hob with the normal, smooth functioning of the PanAsian government. Finally Downer said, "Here's a general order going out Wait a minute -- It orders a radio silence on all clear-speech messages; everything has to be coded."

Ardmore glanced at Thomas. "I guess that is about the right point, Jeff. Somebody with horse sense and poise is trying to whip them back into shape -- probably our old pal, the Prince. Time to stymie him." He rang the communications office. "O.K., Steeves," he said to the face of the watch officer, "give them power!"

"Jam 'em?

"That's right. Warn all temples through Circuit A, and let them all do it at once."

"They are standing by now, sir. Execute?"

"Very well -- execute!"

Wilkie had developed a simple little device whereby the tremendous power of the temple projectors could be rectified, if desired, to undifferentiated electromagnetic radiation in the radio frequencies -- static. Now they cut loose like sunspots, electrical storms, and aurora, all hooked up together.

Downer was seen to snatch the headphones from his ears. "For the love o' -- Why didn't somebody warn me?" He reapproached one receiver cautiously to an ear, and shook his head. "Dead. I'll bet we've burned out every receiver in the country."

"Maybe so," observed Ardmore to those in his office, "but we'll keep jamming them just the same. " At that moment, in all the United States, there remained no general communication system but the pararadio of the cult of Mota. The Asiatic rulers could not even fall back on wired telephony; the obsolete ground lines had long since been salvaged for their copper.

"How much longer, Chief?" asked Thomas.

"Not very long. We let 'em talk long enough for them to know something, hellacious is happening all over the country. Now we've cut 'em off. That should produce a feeling of panic. I want to let that panic have time to ripen and spread to every PanAsian in the country. When I figure they are ripe, we'll sock it to 'em!"

"How will you tell?"

"I can't. It will be on hunch, between ourselves.

We'll let the little darlings run around in circles for a while, not over an hour, then give 'em the works."

Dr. Brooks nervously attempted to make conversation. "It certainly will be a relief to have this entire matter settled once and for always. It's been very trying at times --" His voice trailed off.

Ardmore turned on him. "Don't ever think we can settle things 'once and for always.' "

"But surely -- if we defeat the PanAsians decisively --"

"That's where you are wrong about it." The nervous strain he was under showed in his brusque manner. "We got into this jam by thinking we could settle things once and for always.. We met the Asiatic threat by the Nonintercourse Act and by big West coast defenses -- so they came at us over the north pole!

"We should have known better; there were plenty of lessons in history. The old French Republic tried to freeze events to one pattern with the Versailles Treaty. When that didn't work they built the Maginot Line and went to sleep behind it. What did it get them? Final blackout!

"Life is a dynamic process and can't be made static. '-- and they all lived happily ever after' is fairy-tale stu --" He was interrupted by the jangling of a bell and the red flashing of the emergency transparency.

The face of the communications watch officer snapped into view on the reflectophone screen. "Major Ardmore!"

It was gone and replaced by the features of Frank

Mitsui, contorted .with apprehension. "Major!" he burst out. "Colonel Calhoun -- he's gone crazy!" "Easy, man, easy! What's happened?" "He gave me the slip -- he's gone up the temple. He thinks he's the god Mota!"

666CHAPTER TWELVE

Ardmore cut frank off by switching to the communications watch officer. "Get me the control board in the great altar -- move!"

He got it, but it was not the operator on watch that Ardmore saw. Instead it was Calhoun, bending over the console of controls. The operator was collapsed in his chair, head lolled to the right. Ardmore cut the connection at once and dived for the door.

Thomas and Brooks competed for second place, leaving the orderly a hopelessly outdistanced fourth. The three swept up the gravity chute to the temple level at maximum acceleration, and slammed out onto the temple floor. The altar lay before them, a hundred feet away.

"I assigned Frank to watch him," Thomas was trying to say when Calhoun stuck his head over the upper rail of the altar.

"Stand fast!"

They stood. Brooks whispered, "He's got the heavy projector trained on us. Careful, Major!"

"I know it," Ardmore acknowledged, letting the words slip out of one side of his mouth. He cleared his throat. "Colonel Calhoun!"

"I am the great Lord Mota. Careful how you speak to me!"

"Yes, certainly, Lord Mota. But tell thy servant something -- isn't Colonel Calhoun one of your attributes?"

Calhoun considered this. "Sometimes," he finally answered, "sometimes I think that he is. Yes, he is."

"Then I wish to speak to Colonel Calhoun." Ardmore eased forward a few steps.

"Stand still!" Calhoun crouched rigid over the projector. "My lightnings are set for white men -- take care!"

"Watch it, Chief," whispered Thomas, "he can blast the whole damn place with that thing."

"Don't I know it!" Ardmore answered voicelessly, and started to resume the verbal tight-rope walk. But something had diverted Calhoun's attention. They saw him turn his head, then hastily swing the heavy projector around and depress its controls with both hands. He raised his head almost immediately, seemed to make some readjustment of the projector, and depressed the controls again. Almost simultaneously some heavy body struck him; he fell from sight behind the rail.

On the floor of the altar platform they found Calhoun struggling. But his arms were held, his legs pinioned by the limbs of a short stocky brown man -- Frank Mitsui. Frank's eyes were lifeless china, his muscles rigid.

It took four men to force Calhoun into an improvised straitjacket and to carry him down to sick bay. "As I figure it," said Thomas, watching the work party remove their psychotic burden, "Dr. Calhoun had the projector set to kill white men. The first blast didn't harm Frank, and he had to stop to reset the controls. That saved us."

"Yes -- but not Frank."

"Well -- you know his story. That second blast must have hit him while he was actually in the air -- full power. Did you feel his arms? Coagulated instantaneously -- like a hard-boiled egg."

But they had no time to dwell on the end of little Mitsui's tragic life; more minutes had passed. Ardmore and company hurried back to his office, where he found Kendig, his Chief of Staff, calmly handling the traffic of dispatches. Ardmore demanded a quick verbal resume.

"One change, Major -- they tried to A-bomb the temple in Nashville. A near miss, but it wrecked the city district south of it. Have you set the zero hour? Several dioceses have inquired."

"Not yet, but very soon. Unless you have some more data for me, I'll give them their final instructions right away on Circuit A."

"No, sir, you might as well go ahead."

When Circuit A was reported back as ready, Ardmore cleared his throat. He felt suddenly nervous. "Action in twenty minutes, gentlemen," he started in. "I want to review the main points of the plan.'

He ran over it; the twelve scout cars were assigned one each to the twelve largest cities, or, rather, what was almost the same list, the twelve heaviest concentrations of PanAsian military power. The attack of the scout cars would be the signal to attack on the ground in those areas.

The scout cars, with one exception, were poised even as he spoke, in the stratosphere over their objectives.

The heavy projectors mounted in the scout cars were to inflict as much quick damage as possible on military objectives on the ground, especially barracks and air fields. Priests, being nearly invulnerable, would supplement them on the ground, as would the projectors in the temples. The "troops" made up from the congregations would harry and hunt. "Tell them when in doubt to shoot, and shoot first. Don't wait to see the whites of their eyes. The basic weapons are good for thousands of activations without recharging, and they can't possibly hurt a white man with them. Shoot anything that moves!

"Also," he added, "tell them not to be alarmed at anything strange. If it looks impossible, one of our boys is responsible; we specialize in miracles!

"That's all -- good hunting!"

His last precaution referred to a special task assignment for Wilkie, Graham, Scheer, and Downer. Wilkie had been working on some special effects, with Graham's artistic collaboration. The task in battle required a team of four, but was not a part of the regular plan. Wilkie himself did not know just how well it would work, but Ardmore had assigned a scout car to them and had given them their head in the matter.

His striker had been dressing him in his robes as he spoke. He settled his turban in place, checked his personal pararadio hook-up with the communications office, and turned to say good-by to Kendig and Thomas. He noticed a queer look in Thomas' eyes, and felt his neck turn red. "You want to go, don't you, Jeff?"

Thomas did not say anything. Ardmore added, "Sure -- I'm a heel. I know that. But only one of us can go to this party, and it's going to be me!"

"You've got me wrong, Chief -- I don't like killing."

"So? I don't know that I do, either. Just the same I'm going out and finish Frank Mitsui's bookkeeping for him." He shook hands with both of them.

Thomas gave the signal of execution before Ardmore reached the PanAsian capital city. His pilot set him down on the roof of the temple there after the fighting in the capital had commenced, then gunned his craft away to take up his own task assignment.

Ardmore looked around. It was quiet in the immediate neighborhood of the temple; the big projector in the temple would have seen to that. He had seen one PanAsian cruiser crash while they were landing, but the speedy little scout car assigned to that task he had not been able to notice. He went down inside the temple.

It seemed deserted. A man was standing near a duocycle car parked garagelike on the temple floor. He came up and announced, "Sergeant Bryan, sir. The priest -- I mean Lieutenant Rogers -- told me to wait for you."

"Very well, then -- let's go." He climbed into the car. Bryan put his little fingers to his lips and whistled piercingly.

"Joel" he shouted. A man stuck his head over the top of the altar. "Going out, Joe." The head disappeared; the great doors of the temple opened. Bryan climbed in beside Ardmore and asked, "Where to?"

"Find me the heaviest fighting -- or, rather, PanAsians, lots of them."

"It's the same thing." The car trundled down the wide temple steps, turned right and picked up speed.

The street ran into a little circular parkway set with bushes. There were four or five figures crouched behind those bushes, and one sprawled prone on the ground. As the car slowed, Ardmore heard the sharp ping! of a vortex rifle or pistol -- he could not tell which -- and one of the crouching figures jerked and fell.

"They're in that office building," yelled Bryan in his ear.

He set his staff to radiate a narrow, thin wedge and fanned the beam up and down the building. The pinging noise stopped. An Asiatic dashed out a door that he had not yet touched and fled up the street. Ardmore cut the beam and used another setting, aiming at the figure by means of a thin bright beam of light. The light touched the man; there was a dull, heavy boom and the man disappeared. In his place was a great oily cloud which swelled and dispersed.

"Jumping Judas! What was that?" Bryan demanded.

"Colloidal explosion. I released the surface tension of his body cells. We've been saving it for this day."

"But what made him explode?"

"The pressure in his cells. They can run as high as several hundred pounds. But let's go."

The next few blocks were deserted of all but bodies; however, Ardmore kept his projector turned on and swept the buildings they passed as systematically as the speed would allow. He took advantage of the lull to call headquarters. "Any reports yet, Jeff?"

"Nothing much yet, Chief. It's too soon."

They shot out into the open before Ardmore realized where Bryan was taking him. It was the State university campus on the edge of the city, now used as barracks by the imperial army. The athletic fields and golf course adjoining had been turned into an airport.

Here for the first time he realized clearly how pitifully few were the Americans whom he had armed to destroy the PanAsians. There appeared to be a skirmish line of sorts in position off to the right: he could see the toll they were taking of the Asiatics. But there were thousands of them, enough to engulf the Americans by sheer multitude. Damn it, why hadn't the scout car assigned reduced this place? Had it met with a mishap?

He decided that the crew of the scout car had been kept busy with aircraft, too busy to clean out the barracks. He thought now that he should have fought city by city, using all available scout cars as a unit, and trusting to the jamming of the radio to permit him to do it that way. Was it too late now to change? Yes -- the gage was thrown, the battle was on all over the country. Now it must be fought.

He was already busy with his staff in an attempt to swing the issue. He cut into the lines of Asiatics with the primary effect set at full power, doing a satisfying amount of slaughter. Then he decided on a change in tactics -- colloidal explosion. It was slower and clumsy, but the effect on morale should be advantageous.

He omitted the guide ray to make it more mysterious and sighted through a deep hole in the cube of the staff. There! One of the rats was smoke! He had them ranged now -- two! Three! Four! Again and again -- a dozen or more.

It was too much for the Orientals. They were brave and seasoned soldiers, but they could not fight what they did not understand. They broke and ran, back toward their barracks. Ardmore heard cheers from the scattered Americans, dominated by an authentic rebel yell. Figures rose up from cover and took out after the disorganized Asiatics.

Ardmore called headquarters again. "Circuit AI"

A few seconds' delay and he was answered, "You've got it."

"All officers, attention! Use the organic explosion as much as possible. It scares the hell out of 'em!" He repeated the message and released the circuit.

He directed Bryan to go closer to the buildings. Bryan bumped the car over a curb and complied, weaving in and out between trees. They were conscious of a terrific explosion; the car rose a few feet in the air and came lurching down on its side. Ardmore pulled himself together and attempted to get up. It was then that he realized that somehow he had held his staff clear.

The door above him was jammed. He burned his way clear with the staff and clambered out. He looked back in to Bryan. "Are you hurt?"

"Not much." Bryan shook himself. "Cracked my left collarbone, maybe."

"Here -- grab my hand. Can you make it? I've got to hang on to my staff." Between them they got him out. "I'll have to leave you. Got your basic weapon?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right. Good luck.',' He glanced at the crater as he moved away. It was well, he thought, that he had had his shield turned on.

A few dozen Americans were moving cautiously among the buildings, shooting as they went. Twice Ardmore was fired on by men who had been told to shoot first. Good boys! Shoot anything that moves!

A PanAsian aircraft, flying low, cut slowly across the edge of the campus. It trailed a plume of heavy yellow fog. Gas! They were gassing their own troops in order to kill a handful of Americans. The bank of mist settled slowly toward the ground and rolled in his direction. He suddenly realized that this was serious, for him as well as for others. His shield was little protection against gas, for it was necessary to let air filter through it.

But he was attempting to get a line on the aircraft even as he decided that his own turn had come. The craft wavered and crashed before he could line up on it. So the scout car was on the job after all -- good!

The gas came on. Could he run around the edge of it? No. Perhaps he could hold his breath and run through it, trusting to his shield for all other matters. Not likely.

Some unconscious recess of his brain gave him the answer -- transmutation. A few seconds later, his staff set to radiate in a wide cone, he was blasting a hole in the deadly cloud. Back and forth he swept the cone, as if playing a stream of water with a hose, and the foggy particles changed to harmless, life-giving oxygen.

"Jeff!"

"Yes, Chief?"

"Any trouble with gas?"

"Quite a bit. In --"

"Never mind. Broadcast this on Circuit A: Set staff to --" He went on to describe how to fight that most intangible weapon.

The scout car came screaming down out of heaven, hovered, and began cruising back and forth over the dormitory barracks. The campus became suddenly very silent. That was better; apparently the pilot had just had too much to do at one time. Ardmore felt suddenly alone, the fight had moved past him while he was dealing with the gas threat. He looked around for transportation to commandeer in order to scout around and check up on the fighting in the rest of the city. The trouble with this damn battle, he thought to himself, is that it hasn't any coherence; it's every place at once. No help for it; it was in the nature of the problem.

"Chief?" It was Thomas calling.

"Go ahead, Jeff. "

"Wilkie is heading your way."

"Good. Has he had any luck?"

"Yes, but just wait till you see! I caught a glimpse of it in the screen, transmitted from Kansas City. That's all now."

"O.K." He looked around again for transportation. He wanted to be around some PanAsians, some live PanAsians, when Wilkie arrived. There was a monocycle standing at the curb, abandoned, about a block from the campus. He appropriated it.

There were PanAsians, he discovered, in plenty near the palace -- and the battle was not going too well for the Americans. He added the effort of his staff and was very busy picking out individuals and exploding them when Wilkie arrived.

Enormous, incredible, a Gargantuan manlike figure of perfect black -- more than a thousand feet high, it came striding across the buildings, its feet filling the streets. It was as if the Empire State Building had gone for a stroll -- a giant, three-dimensional shadow of a priest of Mota, complete with robes and staff.

It had a voice.

It had a voice that rolled with thunder, audible and distinct for miles. "Americans, arise! The day is at hand! The Disciple has come! Rise up and smite your masters!"

Ardmore wondered how the men in the car, could stand the noise, wondered also if they were flying inside the projection, or somewhere above it.

The voice changed to the PanAsian tongue. Ardmore could not understand the words, but he knew the general line it would take. Downer was telling the war lords that vengeance was upon them, and that any who wished to save their yellow skins would be wise to flee at once. He was telling them that, but with a great deal more emphasis and attention to detail and with an acute knowledge of their psychological weaknesses.

The gross and horrifying pseudo-creature stopped in the park before the palace, and, leaning over, touched a massive finger to a fleeing Asiatic. The man disappeared. He straightened up and again addressed the world in PanAsian -- but the square no longer contained PanAsians.

The fighting continued sporadically for hours, but it was no longer a battle; it was more in the nature of vermin extermination. Some of the Orientals surrendered; more died by their own hand; most died purposefully at the hands of their late serfs. A consolidated report from Thomas to Ardmore concerning the degree of progress in mopping up throughout the country was interrupted by the communications officer. "Urgent call from the priest in the capital city, sir."

"Put him on."

A second voice continued, "Major Ardmore?"

"Yes. Go ahead."

"We have captured the Prince Royal --"

"The hell you say!"

"Yes, sir. I request your permission to execute him."

"What was that, sir?"

"No! You heard me. I'll see him at your headquarters. Mind you don't let anything happen to him!"

Ardmore took time to shave off his beard and to change into uniform before he had the Prince Royal brought before him. When at last the PanAsian ruler stood before him he looked up and said without ceremony, "Any of your people I can save will be loaded up and shipped back where they came from."

"You are gracious."

"I suppose you know by now that you were tricked, hoaxed, by science that your culture can't match. You could have wiped us out any time, almost up to the last."

The Oriental remained impassive. Ardmore hoped fervently that the calm was superficial. He continued, "What I said about your people does not apply to you. I shall hold you as a common criminal."

The Prince's brows shot up. "For making war?"

"No -- you might argue your way out of that. For the mass murder you ordered in the territory of the United States -- your 'educational' lesson. You will be tried by a jury, like any other common criminal, and, I strongly suspect hanged by the neck until you are dead! "That's all. Take him away."

"One moment, please."

"What is it?"

"You recall the chess problem you saw in my palace?"

"What of it?"

"Could you give me the four-move solution?"

"Oh, that." Ardmore laughed heartily. "You'll believe anything, won't you? I had no solution; I was simply bluffing."

It was clear for an instant that something at last had cracked the Prince's cold self-control.

He never came to trial. They found him the next morning, his head collapsed across the chess-board he had asked for.