Authors: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fiction, #Science fiction, #General, #Fiction - Science Fiction, #Science Fiction - General, #Adventure
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