Sixth Column (26 page)

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 ònce 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 o£ 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!"

CHAPTER 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 manFrank 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 sig nal 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 c an 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