Sixth Column

CHAPTER POUR

Ardmore kept very much to himself for the next two days, taking his meals in his quarters, and refusing anything but the briefest interviews. He saw his error plainly enough now; it was small solace to him that it had been another's mistake which had resulted in the massacres -- he felt symbolically guilty.

But the problem remained with him. He knew now that he had been right when he had decided on a sixth column. A sixth column! Something which would conform in every superficial way to the pattern set up by the rulers, yet which would have in it the means of their eventual downfall. It might take years, but there must be no repetition of the ghastly mistake of direct action.

He knew intuitively that somewhere in Thomas' report was the idea he needed. He played it back again and again, but still he couldn't get it, even though he now knew it by heart. "They are systematically stamping out everything that is typically American in culture. The schools are gone, so are the newspapers. It is a capital offense to print anything in English. They have announced the early establishment of a system of translators for all business correspondence into their language; in the meantime all mail must be approved as necessary. All meetings are forbidden except religious meetings."

"I suppose that is a result of their experience in India. Keeps the slaves quiet." That was his own voice, sounding strange in reproduction.

"I suppose so, sir. Isn't it an historical fact that all successful empires have tolerated the local religions, no matter what else they suppressed?"

"I suppose so. Go ahead."

"The real strength of their system, I believe, is in their method of registration. They apparently were all set to put it into force, and pressed forward on that to the exclusion of other matters. It's turned the United States into one big prison camp in which it is almost impossible to move or communicate without permission from the jailers."

Words, words, and more words! He had played them over so many times that the significance was almost lost. Perhaps there was nothing in the report, after all -- nothing but his imagination.

He responded to a knock at the door. It was Thomas. "They asked me to speak to you, sir," he said diffidently.

"What about?"

"Well -- they are all gathered in the common room. They'd like to talk with you."

Another conference -- and not of his choosing, this time. Well, he would have to go. "Tell them I will be in shortly."

"Yes, sir."

After Thomas had gone, he sat for a moment, then went to a drawer and took out his service side arm. He could smell mutiny in the very fact that someone had dared to call a general meeting without his permission. He buckled it on, then tried the slide and the change, and stood looking at it. Presently he unbuckled it and put it back into the drawer. It wouldn't help him in this mess.

He entered, sat down in his chair at the head of the table, and waited.

"Well?"

Brooks glanced around to see if anyone else wished to answer, cleared his throat, and said, "Uh -- we wanted to ask you if you had any plan for us to follow."

"I do not have -- as yet."

"Then we do have!" It was Calhoun.

"Yes, Colonel?"

"There is no sense in hanging around here with our hands tied. We have the strongest weapons the world has ever seen, but they need men to operate them. "

"Well?"

"We are going to evacuate and go to South America! There we can find a government which will be interested in superior weapons."

"What good will that do the United States?"

"It's obvious. The empire undoubtedly intends to extend its sway over this entire hemisphere. We can interest them in a preventive war. Or perhaps we can raise up an army of refugees."

"No!"

"I am afraid you can't help yourself, Major." The tone held malicious satisfaction.

He turned to Thomas. "Are you with them on this?"

Thomas looked unhappy. "I had hoped that you would have a better plan, sir."

"And you, Dr. Brooks?"

"Well -- it seems feasible. I feel much as Thomas does."

"Graham?"

The man gave him answer by silence. Wilkie looked up and then away again.

"Mitsui?"

"I'll go back outside, sir. I have things to finish."

"Scheer?"

Scheer's jaw muscles quivered. "I'll stick if you do, sir."

"Thanks." He turned to the rest. "I said, 'No!' and I mean it. If any of you leave here, it will be in direct violation of your oaths. That goes for you, Thomas! I'm not being arbitrary about this. The thing you propose to do is on all fours with the raid I canceled. So long as the people of the United States are hostages at the mercy of the PanAsians we can not take direct military action! It doesn't make any difference whether the attack comes from inside or outside, thousands, maybe millions, of innocent people will pay for it with their lives!"

He was very much wrought up, but not too much so to look around and see what effect his words were having. He had them back -- or would have them in a few minutes. All but Calhoun. They were looking disturbed.

"Supposing you are right, sir" -- it was Brooks speaking very gravely -- "supposing you are right, is there anything we can do?"

"I explained that once before. We have to form what I called a 'sixth column,' lie low, study out their weak points, and work on them."

"I see. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps it is necessary. But it calls for a sort of patience more suited to gods than to men."

He almost had it then. What was it?

"So 'There'll be pie in the sky by and by,' " quoted Calhoun. "You should have been a preacher, Major Ardmore. We prefer action."

That was it! That was it!

"You're almost right," Ardmore answered. "Have you listened to Thomas' report?"

"I listened to the play-back."

"Do you recall the one respect in which white men are still permitted to organize?"

"Why, no, I don't recall that there was one."

"None? Nowhere that they were permitted to assemble?"

"I know!" Thomas burst in. "Churches!"

Ardmore waited a moment for it to sink in, then he said very softly, "Has it ever occurred to any of you to think of the possibilities in founding a new religion?"

There was a short and startled silence. Calhoun broke it.

"The man's gone mad!"

"Take it easy, Colonel," Ardmore said mildly. "I don't blame you for thinking that I've gone crazy. It does sound crazy to talk about founding a new religion when what we want is military action against the PanAsians. But consider -- what we need is an organization that can be trained and armed to fight. That and a communication system which will enable us to coordinate the whole activity. And we have to do the whole thing under the eyes of the PanAsians without arousing their suspicions. If we were a religious sect instead of a military organization, all that would be possible."

"It's preposterous! I'll have nothing to do with it."

"Please, Colonel. We need you badly. On that matter of a communication system now -- Imagine temples in every city in the country hooking together with a communication system and the whole thing hooked in here at the Citadel."

Calhoun snorted. "Yes, and the Asiatics listening in to everything you say!"

"That's why we need you, Colonel. Couldn't you devise a system that they couldn't trap? Something like a radio, maybe, but operating in one of the additional spectra so that their instruments could not detect it? Or couldn't you?"

Calhoun snorted again but with a different intonation. "Why, certainly I could. The problem is elementary."

"That's exactly why we have to have you, Colonel -- to solve problems that are elementary to a man of your genius", Ardmore felt slightly nauseated inside: this was worse than writing advertising copy

"but which are miracles for the rest of us. That's what a religion needs -- miracles! You'll be called on to produce effects that will strain even your genius, things that the PanAsians cannot possibly understand, and will think supernatural." Seeing Calhoun still hesitate, he added, "You can do it, can't you?"

"Certainly, I can, my dear Major."

"Fine. How soon can you let me have a communication method which can't be compromised or detected?"

"Impossible to say, but it won't take long. I still don't see the sense to your scheme, Major, but I will turn my attention to the research you say you require." He got up and went out, a procession of one.

"Major?" Wilkie asked for attention.

"What? Oh, yes, Wilkie."

"I can design such a communication system for you."

"I don't doubt it a damn bit, but we are going to need all the talent we can stir up for this job. There will be plenty for you to do, too. Now as to the rest of the scheme, here's what I have in mind just a rough idea, and I want you all to kick it around as much as possible until we get it as nearly foolproof as possible.

"We'll go through all the motions of setting up an evangelical religion, and try to get people to come to our services. Once we get 'em in where we can talk to 'em, we can pick out the ones that can be trusted and enlist them in the army. We'll make them deacons, or something, in the church. Our big angle will be charity -- you come in on that, Wilkie with the transmutation process. You will turn out a lot of precious metal, gold mostly, so that we will have ready cash to work with. We feed the poor and the hungry -- the PanAsians have provided us with plenty of those! and pretty soon we'll have 'em coming to us in droves.

"But that isn't the half of it. We really will go in for miracles in a big way. Not only to impress the white population -- that's secondary but to confuse our lords and masters. We'll do things they can't understand, make them uneasy, uncertain of themselves. Never anything against them, you understand. We'll be loyal subjects of the Empire in every possible way, but we'll be able to do things that they can't. That will upset them and make them nervous."

It was taking shape in his mind like a well-thought out advertising campaign. "By the time we are ready to strike in force, we should have them demoralized, afraid of us, half hysterical."

They were beginning to be infected with some of his enthusiasm; but the scheme was conceived from a viewpoint more or less foreign to their habits of thought. "Maybe this will work, Chief," objected Thomas, " I don't say that it won't, but how do you propose to get it underway? Won't the Asiatic administrators smell a rat in the sudden appearance of a new religion?"

"Maybe so, but I don't think it likely. All Western religions look equally screwy to them. They know we have dozens of religions and they don't know anything about most of them. That's one respect in which the Era of Nonintercourse will be useful to us. They don't know much about our institutions since the Nonintercourse Act. This will just look like any one of half a dozen cockeyed cults of the sort that spring up overnight in Southern California."

"But about that springing-up business, Chief -- How do we start out? We can't just walk out of the Citadel, buttonhole one of the yellow boys, and say, 'I'm John the Baptist.' "

"No, we can't. That's a point that has to be worked out. Has anybody any ideas?"

The silence that followed was thick with intense concentration. Finally Graham proposed, "Why not just set up in business, and wait to be noticed?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well, we've got enough people right here to operate on a small scale. If we had a temple somewhere, one of us could be the priest, and the others could be disciples or something. Then just wait to be noticed. "

"H-m-m-m. You've got something there, Graham. But we'll open up on the biggest scale we can manage. We'll all be priests and altar attendants and so forth, and I'll send Thomas out to stir up a congregation for us among his pals. No, wait. Let 'em come in as pilgrims. We'll start this off with a whispering campaign among the hobos, send it over the grapevine. We'll have 'em say, 'The Disciple is coming!"'

"What does that mean?" Scheer inquired.

"Nothing, yet. But it will, when the time comes. Now look -- Graham, you're an artist. You're going to have to get dinner with your left hand for a few days. Your right will be busy sketching out ideas for robes and altars and props in general -- sacerdotal stuff. Guess the interior and exterior of the temple will be mostly up to you, too."

"Where will the temple be located?"

"Well, now, that's a question. It shouldn't be too far from here unless we abandon the Citadel entirely. That doesn't seem expedient; we need it for a base and a laboratory. But the temple can't be too close, for we can't afford to attract special attention to this mountainside." Ardmore drummed on the table. "It's a difficult matter."

"Why not," offered Dr. Brooks, "make this the temple?"

"Huh?"

"I don't mean this room, of course, but why not put the first temple right on top of the Citadel? It would be very convenient."

"So it would, doctor, but it would certainly draw a lot of unhealthy attention to -- Wait a minute! I think I see what you mean." He turned to Wilkie. "Bob, how could you use the Ledbetter effect to conceal the existence of the Citadel, if the Mother Temple sat right on top of it? Could it be done?"

Wilkie looked more puzzled and collie-doggish than ever. "The Ledbetter effect wouldn't do it. Do you especially want to use the Ledbetter effect? Because if you don't it wouldn't be hard to rig a type-seven screen in the magneto-gravitic spectrum so that electromagnetic type instruments would be completely blanked out. You see --"

"Of course I don't care what you use! I don't even know the names of the -- stuff you laboratory boys use -- all I want is the results. O. K. -- you take care of that. We'll completely design the temple here, get all the materials laid out and ready to assemble down below, then break through to the surface and run the thing up as fast as possible. Anyone have any idea how long that will take? I'm afraid my own experience doesn't run to building construction."

Wilkie and Scheer engaged in a whispered consultation. Presently Wilkie broke off and said, "Don't worry too much about that, Chief. It will be a power job."

"What sort?"

"You've got a memorandum on your desk about the stuff. The traction and pressure control we developed from the earlier Ledbetter experiments."

"Yes, Major," Scheer added, "you can forget it; I'll take care of the job. With tractors and pressors in an aggravitic field, it won't take any longer than assembling a cardboard model. Matter of fact, I'll practice on a cardboard model before we run up the main job."

"O.K., troops," Ardmore smilingly agreed, with the lightheartedness that comes from the prospect of plenty of hard work, "that's the way I like to hear you talk. The powwow is adjourned for now. Get going! Thomas, come with me."

"Just a second, Chief," Brooks added as he got up to follow him, "couldn't we --" They went out the door, still talking.

Despite Scheer's optimism the task of building a temple on the mountain top above the Citadel developed unexpected headaches. None of the little band had had any real experience with large construction jobs. Ardmore, Graham, and Thomas knew nothing at all of such things, although Thomas had done plenty of work with his hands, some of it carpentry. Calhoun was a mathematician and by temperament undisposed to trouble himself with such menial pursuits in any case. Brooks was willing enough but he was a biologist, not an engineer. Wilkie was a brilliant physicist and, along lines related to his specialty, a competent engineer; he could design a piece of new apparatus necessary to his work quite handily.

However, Wilkie had built no bridges, designed no dams, bossed no gangs of sweating men. Nevertheless the job devolved on him by Hobson's choice. Scheer was not competent to build a large building; he thought that he was, but he thought in terms of small things, tools, patterns, and other items that fitted into a machine shop. He could build a scale model of a large building, but he simply did not understand heavy construction.

It was up to Wilkie.

He showed up in Ardmore's office a few days later with a roll of drawings under his arm. "Uh, Chief?"

"Eh? Oh, come in, Bob. Sit down. What's eating on you? When do we start building the temple? See here -- I've been thinking about other ways to conceal the fact that the Citadel will be under the temple. Do you suppose you could arrange the altar so that --"

"Excuse me, Chief."

"Eh?

"We can incorporate most any dodge you want into the design, but I've got to know something more about the design first."

"That's your problem -- yours and Graham's."

"Yes, sir. But how big do you want it to be?"

"How big? Oh, I don't know, exactly. It has to be big." Ardmore made a sweeping motion with both hands that took in floor, walls, and ceiling. "It has to be impressive."

"How about thirty feet in the largest dimension?"

"Thirty feet? Why, that's ridiculous! You aren't building a soft-drinks stand; you're building the mother temple of a great religion -- of course you aren't, but you've got to think of it that way. It's got to knock their eyes out. What's the trouble? Materials?"

Wilkie shook his head. "No, with Ledbetter-type transmutation materials are not a problem. We can use the mountain itself for materials."

"That's what I thought you intended to do. Carve out big chunks of granite and use your tractor and pressor beams to lay them up like giant bricks."

"Oh, no!

"No? Why not?"

"Well, we could, but when we got through it wouldn't look like much -- and I don't know how we would roof it over. What I intended to do was to use the Ledbetter effect not just for cutting or quarrying, but to make -- transmute -- the materials I want. You see, granite is principally oxides of silicon. That complicates things a little because both elements are fairly near the lower end of the periodic table. Unless we go to a lot of trouble and get rid of a lot of excess energy -- a tremendous amount; darn near as much as the Memphis power pile develops -- as I say, unless we arrange to bleed off all that power, and right now I don't see just how we could do it, then --"

"Get to the point, man!"

"I was getting to the point, sir," Wilkie answered in hurt tones. "Transmutations from the top or the bottom of the periodic scale toward the middle give off power; contrariwise, they absorb energy. Way back in the middle of the last century they found out how to do the first sort; that's what atom bombs are based on. But to handle transmutations for building materials, you don't want to give off energy like an atom bomb or a power pile. It would be embarrassing."

"I should think so!"

"So I'll use the second sort, the energy-absorbing sort. As a matter of fact I'll balance them. Take magnesium for instance. It lies between silicon and oxygen. The binding energies involved --"

"Wilkie!"

"Yes, Sir?"

"Just assume that I never got through third grade. Now can you make the materials you need, or can't you?"

"Oh, yes, sir, I can make them."

"Then how can I be of help to you?"

"Well, sir, it's the matter of putting the roof on and the size. You say a thirty-foot over-all dimension is no good --"

"No good at all. Did you see the North American Exposition? Remember the General Atomics Exhibit?"

"I've seen pictures of it."

"I want something as gaudy and impressive as that, only bigger. Now why are you limited to thirty feet?"

"Well, sir, a panel six by thirty is the biggest I can squeeze out through the door, allowing for the turn in the passage."

"Take 'em up through the scout-car lift."

"I thought of that. It will take a panel thirteen feet wide, which is good, but the maximum length is then only twenty-seven feet. There's a corner to turn between the hangar and the lift."

"Hmm -- Look, can you weld with that magic gimmick? I thought you could build the temple in sections, down below here, then assemble it above ground?"

"That was the idea. Yes, I suppose we could weld walls as big as you want. But look, major, how big a building do you want?"

"As big as you can manage."

"But how big do you want?"

Ardmore told him. Wilkie whistled. "I suppose it's possible to give you walls that big, but I don't see any way to roof it over."

"Seems to me I've seen buildings with that much clear span."

"Yes, of course. You give me the services of construction engineers and architects and heavy industry to build the trusses needed to take that span and I'll build you as big a temple as you want. But Scheer and I can't do it alone, even with pressors and tractors to do all the heavy work. I'm sorry, sir, but I don't see an answer."

Ardmore stood up and put a hand on Wilkie's arm. "You mean you don't see an answer yet. Don't get upset, Bob. I'll take whatever you build. But just remember -- This is going to be our first public display. A lot depends on it. We can't expect to make much impression on our overlords with a hotdog stand. Make it as big as you can. I'd like something about as impressive as the Great Pyramid -- but don't take that long to build it."

Wilkie looked worried. "I'll try, sir. I'll go back and think about it."

"Fine!"

When Wilkie had gone Ardmore turned to Thomas. "What do you think about it, Jeff? Am I asking too much?"

"I was just wondering," Thomas said slowly, "why. you set so much store by this temple?"

"Well, in the first place it gives a perfect cover up for the Citadel. If we are going to do anything more than sit here and die of old age, the time will come when a lot of people will have to be going in and out of here. We can't keep the location secret under those circumstances so we will have to have a reason, a cover up. People are always going in and out of a church building -- worship and so forth. I want to cover up the 'and so forth.' "

"I understand that. But a building with thirty-foot maximum dimensions can cover up a secret stairway quite as well as the sort of convention-hall job you are asking young Wilkie to throw up."

Ardmore squirmed. Damn it -- couldn't anyone but himself see the value of advertising? "Look, Jeff, this whole deal depends on making the right impression at the start. If Columbus had come in asking for a dime, he would have been thrown out of the palace on his ear. As it was, he got the crown jewels. We've got to have an impressive front."

"I suppose so," Thomas answered without conviction.

Several days later Wilkie asked permission for Scheer and himself to go outside. Finding that they did not intend to go far, Ardmore gave permission, after impressing on them the need for extreme caution.

He encountered them some time later proceeding down the main passage toward the laboratories. They had an enormous granite boulder. Scheer was supporting it clear of walls and floor by means of tractors and pressors generated by a portable Ledbetter projector strapped as a pack on his shoulders. Wilkie had tied a line around the great chunk of rock and was leading it as if it were a cow. "Great Scott!" said Ardmore. "What y' got there?"

"Uh, a piece of mountain, sir."

"So I see. But why?"

Wilkie looked mysterious. "Major, could you spare some time later in the day? We might have something to show you."

"If you won't talk, you won't talk. Very well."

Wilkie phoned him later, much later, asked him to come and suggested that Thomas come, too. When they arrived in the designated shop room everyone was present except Calhoun. Wilkie greeted them and said, "With your permission, we'll start, Major."

"Don't be so formal. Aren't you going to wait for Colonel Calhoun?"

"I invited him, but he declined."

"Go ahead then."

"Yes, sir." Wilkie turned to the rest. "This piece of granite represents the mountain top above us. Go ahead, Scheer. "

Wilkie took position at a Ledbetter projector. Scheer was already at one; it had been specially fitted with sights and some other gadgetry that Ardmore could not identify. Scheer pressed a couple of studs; a pencil beam of light sprang out.

Using it as if it were a saw he sliced the top off the boulder. Wilkie caught the separated portion with a tractor-pressor combination and moved it aside. He set his controls and it hung in air; where it had been the stone was flat and of mirror polish. "That's the temple's base," said Wilkie.

Scheer continued carving with his pencil beam, trucking his projector around as necessary. The flat top had now been squared off; the square was the summit of a four-sided truncated pyramid. That done, he started carving steps down one side of the figure. "That's enough, Scheer," Wilkie commanded. "Let's make a wall. Prepare the surface."

Scheer did something with his projector. No beam could be seen, but the flat upper surface turned black. "Carbon," announced Wilkie. "Industrial diamonds probably. That's our work bench. O. K., Scheer. " Wilkie moved the detached chunk back over the "bench"; Scheer carved off apiece; it turned molten, dripped down on the flat surface, spread to the edges and stopped. It now had a white metallic sheen. As it doled Scheer nipped each corner, then, using one pressor as a vise to hold it firmly to the boulder and another as a moving wedge, he turned each corner up. It was now a shallow, open box, two feet square and an inch deep. Wilkie whisked it aside and hung it in air.

The process was repeated, but this time a single sheet rather than a box was formed. Wilkie put it out of the way and put the box back on the pedestal. "Let's stuff the turkey," announced Wilkie.

He transferred the chopped-off chunk back to a position over the open box. Scheer carved off a piece and lowered it into the box, then played a beam on it. It melted down and spread over the bottom. "Granite is practically glass," lectured Wilkie, "and what we want is foamed glass, so we use no transmutation in this step-except the least, little bit to make the gases to foam it. Let's have a shot of nitrogen, Scheer." The master sergeant nodded and irradiated the mess for a split second; it foamed up like boiling fudge, filling the shallow box to the rim, and froze.

Wilkie snagged the simple sheet out of the air and caused it to hover over the filled box, then to settle so that it lay, somewhat unevenly, as a cover. "Iron it down, Scheer."

The sheet glowed red and settled in place, pressed flat by an invisible hand. Scheer walked his projector around, welding the cover of the box to the box proper. When he had finished Wilkie set the filled box up on edge at one edge of the pedestal. Leaving the controls of his projector set to hold it there, he walked over to the far side of the room where a tarpaulin covered a pile of something on a bench.

"To save your time and for practice we made four others earlier," he explained and whipped off the tarpaulin. Disclosed were a stack of sandwich panels exactly like that one just created. He did not touch them; instead Scheer lifted them off by projector one at a time and built a cube, using the newly made panel as the first face and the pedestal as the bottom of the cube. Wilkie returned to his projector and held the structure rigid while Scheer welded each seam. "Scheer is much more accurate than I am," he explained. "I give him all the tough parts. O. K., Scheer -- how about a door?"

"How big?" grunted the sergeant, speaking for the first time.

"Use your judgment. Eight inches high would be all right."

Scheer grunted again and carved a rectangular opening in the side facing the slope on which he had begun earlier to carve steps. When he finished Wilkie announced, "There's your temple, boss."

No human hand had touched the boulder nor anything made from it, from start to finish.

The applause sounded like considerably more than five people. Wilkie turned pink; Scheer worked his jaw muscles: They crowded around it. "Is it 'hot'?" inquired Brooks.

"No," answered Mitsui, "I touched it."

"I didn't mean that."

"No, it's not 'hot'," Wilkie reassured him, "not with the Ledbetter process. Stable isotopes, all of them."

Ardmore straightened up from a close inspection. "I take it you intend to do the whole thing outdoors?"

"Is that all right, Major? Of course we could work down below and assemble it up above, from small panels -- but I'm sure that would take just as long as to work from scratch with big panels. And I'm not sure about assembling the roof from small units. Sandwich panels like these are the lightest, strongest, stiffest structure we can use. It was the problem of that big roof span you want that caused us to work out this system."

"Do it your way. I'm sure you know what you're doing. "

"Of course," admitted Wilkie, "we can't finish it in this short a time. This is just the shell. I don't know how long it will take to dress it up."

"Dress it up?" inquired Graham. "When you've got a fine, great simple shape why belittle it with decoration? The cube is one of the purest and most beautiful shapes possible. "

"I agree with Graham," Ardmore commented. "That's your temple, right there. Nothing makes a more effective display than great, unbroken masses. When you've got something simple and effective, don't louse it up."

Wilkie shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I thought you wanted something fancy."

"This is fancy. But see here, Bob, one thing puzzles me. Mind you, I'm not criticizing -- I'd as soon think of criticizing the Days of Creation -- but tell me this: why did you take a chance on going outside? Why didn't you just go into one of the unoccupied rooms, peel off the wall coating and use that magic knife to carve a chunk of granite right out of the heart of the mountain?"

Wilkie looked thunderstruck. "I never thought of that. "