Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction, April, 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed.
TEMPLE TROUBLE
BY H. BEAM PIPER
* * * * *
Miracles to order was a fine way for the paratimers to get mining concessions--but Nature can sometimes pull counter-miracles. And so can men, for that matter....
Illustrated by Rogers
Through a haze of incense and altar smoke, Yat-Zar looked down fromhis golden throne at the end of the dusky, many-pillared temple.Yat-Zar was an idol, of gigantic size and extraordinarily goodworkmanship; he had three eyes, made of turquoises as big asdoorknobs, and six arms. In his three right hands, from top to bottom,he held a sword with a flame-shaped blade, a jeweled object of vaguelyphallic appearance, and, by the ears, a rabbit. In his left hands werea bronze torch with burnished copper flames, a big goblet, and a pairof scales with an egg in one pan balanced against a skull in theother. He had a long bifurcate beard made of gold wire, feet like abird's, and other rather startling anatomical features. His throne wasset upon a stone plinth about twenty feet high, into the front ofwhich a doorway opened; behind him was a wooden screen, elaboratelygilded and painted.
Directly in front of the idol, Ghullam the high priest knelt on a bigblue and gold cushion. He wore a gold-fringed robe of dark blue, and atall conical gold miter, and a bright blue false beard, forked likethe idol's golden one: he was intoning a prayer, and holding up, inboth hands, for divine inspection and approval, a long curved knife.Behind him, about thirty feel away, stood a square stone altar, aroundwhich four of the lesser priests, in light blue robes with less goldfringe and dark-blue false beards, were busy with the preliminaries tothe sacrifice. At considerable distance, about halfway down the lengthof the temple, some two hundred worshipers--a few substantial citizensin gold-fringed tunics, artisans in tunics without gold fringe,soldiers in mail hauberks and plain steel caps, one officer inornately gilded armor, a number of peasants in nondescript smocks, andwomen of all classes--were beginning to prostrate themselves on thestone floor.
Ghullam rose to his feet, bowing deeply to Yat-Zar and holding theknife extended in front of him, and backed away toward the altar. Ashe did, one of the lesser priests reached into a fringed andembroidered sack and pulled out a live rabbit, a big one, obviously ofdomestic breed, holding it by the ears while one of his fellows tookit by the hind legs. A third priest caught up a silver pitcher, whilethe fourth fanned the altar fire with a sheet-silver fan. As theybegan chanting antiphonally, Ghullam turned and quickly whipped theedge of his knife across the rabbit's throat. The priest with thepitcher stepped in to catch the blood, and when the rabbit was bled,it was laid on the fire. Ghullam and his four assistants all shoutedtogether, and the congregation shouted in response.
The high priest waited as long as was decently necessary and then,holding the knife in front of him, stepped around the prayer-cushionand went through the door under the idol into the Holy of Holies. Aboy in novice's white robes met him and took the knife, carrying itreverently to a fountain for washing. Eight or ten under-priests,sitting at a long table, rose and bowed, then sat down again andresumed their eating and drinking. At another table, a half-dozenupper priests nodded to him in casual greeting.
Crossing the room, Ghullam went to the Triple Veil in front of theHouse of Yat-Zar, where only the highest of the priesthood might go,and parted the curtains, passing through, until he came to the greatgilded door. Here he fumbled under his robe and produced a smallobject like a mechanical pencil, inserting the pointed end in a tinyhole in the door and pressing on the other end. The door opened, thenswung shut behind him, and as it locked itself, the lights came onwithin. Ghullam removed his miter and his false beard, tossing themaside on a table, then undid his sash and peeled out of his robe. Hisregalia discarded, he stood for a moment in loose trousers and a softwhite shirt, with a pistollike weapon in a shoulder holster under hisleft arm--no longer Ghullam the high priest of Yat-Zar, but nowStranor Sleth, resident agent on this time-line of the Fourth LevelProto-Aryan Sector for the Transtemporal Mining Corporation. Then heopened a door at the other side of the anteroom and went to theantigrav shaft, stepping over the edge and floating downward.
* * * * *
There were temples of Yat-Zar on every time-line of the Proto-AryanSector, for the worship of Yat-Zar was ancient among the Hulgun peopleof that area of paratime, but there were only a few which had suchinstallations as this, and all of them were owned and operated byTranstemporal Mining, which had the fissionable ores franchise forthis sector. During the ten elapsed centuries since Transtemporal hadbegun operations on this sector, the process had become standardized.A few First Level paratimers would transpose to a selected time-lineand abduct an upper-priest of Yat-Zar, preferably the high priest ofthe temple at Yoldav or Zurb. He would be drugged and transposed tothe First Level, where he would receive hypnotic indoctrination and,while unconscious, have an operation performed on his ears which wouldenable him to hear sounds well above the normal audible range. Hewould be able to hear the shrill sonar-cries of bats, for instance,and, more important, he would be able to hear voices when the speakerused a First Level audio-frequency step-up phone. He would alsoreceive a memory-obliteration from the moment of his abduction, and aset of pseudo-memories of a visit to the Heaven of Yat-Zar, on theother side of the sky. Then he would be returned to his own time-lineand left on a mountain top far from his temple, where an unknownpeasant, leading a donkey, would always find him, return him to thetemple, and then vanish inexplicably.
Then the priest would begin hearing voices, usually while serving atthe altar. They would warn of future events, which would always cometo pass exactly as foretold. Or they might bring tidings of thingshappening at a distance, the news of which would not arrive by normalmeans for days or even weeks. Before long, the holy man who had beencarried alive to the Heaven of Yat-Zar would acquire a most awesomereputation as a prophet, and would speedily rise to the very top ofthe priestly hierarchy.
Then he would receive two commandments from Yat-Zar. The first wouldordain that all lower priests must travel about from temple to temple,never staying longer than a year at any one place. This would insure asteady influx of newcomers personally unknown to the localupper-priests, and many of them would be First Level paratimers. Then,there would be a second commandment: A house must be built forYat-Zar, against the rear wall of each temple. Its dimensions wereminutely stipulated; its walls were to be of stone, without windows,and there was to be a single door, opening into the Holy of Holies,and before the walls were finished, the door was to be barred fromwithin. A triple veil of brocaded fabric was to be hung in front ofthis door. Sometimes such innovations met with opposition from themore conservative members of the hierarchy: when they did, theprincipal objector would be seized with a sudden and violent illness;he would recover if and when he withdrew his objections.
Very shortly after the House of Yat-Zar would be completed, strangenoises would be heard from behind the thick walls. Then, after awhile, one of the younger priests would announce that he had beencommanded in a vision to go behind the veil and knock upon the door.Going behind the curtains, he would use his door-activator to lethimself in, and return by paratime-conveyer to the First Level toenjoy a well-earned vacation. When the high priest would follo
w himbehind the veil, after a few hours, and find that he had vanished, itwould be announced as a miracle. A week later, an even greater miraclewould be announced. The young priest would return from behind theTriple Veil, clad in such raiment as no man had ever seen, and bearingin his hands a strange box. He would announce that Yat-Zar hadcommanded him to build a new temple in the mountains, at a place to bemade known by the voice of the god speaking out of the box.
This time, there would be no doubts and no objections. A processionwould set out, headed by the new revelator bearing the box, and whenthe clicking voice of the god spoke rapidly out of it, the site wouldbe marked and work would begin. No local labor would ever be employedon such temples; the masons and woodworkers would be strangers, comefrom afar and speaking a strange tongue, and when the temple wascompleted, they would never be seen to leave it. Men would say thatthey had been put to death by the priest and buried under the altar topreserve the secrets of the god. And there would always be an idol topreserve