off.
Verkan Vall opened the door and stepped outside, his needler drawn.The House of Yat-Zar was just as he had seen it in the picturephotographed by the automatic reconnaissance-conveyer. The otherscrowded outside after him. One of the regular priests pulled off hismiter and beard and went to the radio, putting on a headset. VerkanVall and Tammand Drav snapped on the visiscreen, getting a view of theHoly of Holies outside.
There were six men there, seated at the upper-priests' banquet table,drinking from golden goblets. Five of them wore the black robes withgreen facings which marked them as priests of Muz-Azin; the sixth wasan officer of the Chuldun archers, in gilded mail and helmet.
"Why, those are the sacred vessels of the temple!" Tammand Drav cried,scandalized. Then he laughed in self-ridicule. "I'm beginning to takethis stuff seriously, myself; time I put in for a long vacation. I wasactually shocked at the sacrilege!"
"Well, let's overtake the infidels in their sins," Verkan Vall said."Paralyzers will be good enough."
He picked up one of the bulb-headed weapons, and unlocked the door.Tammand Drav and another of the priests of the Zurb temple followingand the others crowding behind, they passed out through the veils, andburst into the Holy of Holies. Verkan Vall pointed the bulb of hisparalyzer at the six seated men and pressed the button; otherparalyzers came into action, and the whole sextet were knockedsenseless. The officer rolled from his chair and fell to the floor ina clatter of armor. Two of the priests slumped forward on the table.The others merely sank back in their chairs, dropping their goblets.
"Give each one of them another dose, to make sure," Verkan Valldirected a couple of his own men. "Now, Tammand; any other way intothe main temple beside that door?"
"Up those steps," Tammand Drav pointed. "There's a gallery along theside; we can cover the whole room from there."
"Take your men and go up there. I'll take a few through the door.There'll be about twenty archers out there, and we don't want any ofthem loosing any arrows before we can knock them out. Three minutes betime enough?"
"Easily. Make it two," Tammand Drav said.
* * * * *
He took his priests up the stairway and vanished into the gallery ofthe temple. Verkan Vall waited until one minute had passed and then,followed by Brannad Klav and a couple of Paratime Policemen, he wentunder the plinth and peered out into the temple. Five or six archers,in steel caps and sleeveless leather jackets sewn with steel rings,were gathered around the altar, cooking something in a pot on thefire. Most of the others, like veteran soldiers, were sprawled on thefloor, trying to catch a short nap, except half a dozen, who crouchedin a circle, playing some game with dice--another almost universalmilitary practice.
The two minutes were up. He aimed his paralyzer at the men around thealtar and squeezed the button, swinging it from one to another andknocking them down with a bludgeon of inaudible sound. At the sametime, Tammand Drav and his detail were stunning the gamblers. Steppingforward and to one side, Verkan Vall, Brannad Klav and the others tookcare of the sleepers on the floor. In less than thirty seconds, everyChuldun in the temple was incapacitated.
"All right, make sure none of them come out of it prematurely," VerkanVall directed. "Get their weapons, and be sure nobody has a knife oranything hidden on him. Who has the syringe and the sleep-drugampoules?"
Somebody had, it developed, who was still on the First Level, to comeup with the second conveyer load. Verkan Vall swore. Something likethis always happened, on any operation involving more than half adozen men.
"Well, some of you stay here: patrol around, and use your paralyzerson anybody who even twitches a muscle." Ultrasonics were nice,effective, humane police weapons, but they were unreliable. The samedose that would keep one man out for an hour would paralyze anotherfor no more than ten or fifteen minutes. "And be sure none of them areplaying 'possum."
He went back through the door under the plinth, glancing up at thedecorated wooden screen and wondering how much work it would take tomove the new Yat-Zar in from the conveyers. The five priests and thearcher-captain were still unconscious; one of the policemen wassearching them.
"Here's the sort of weapons these priests carry," he said, holding upa short iron mace with a spiked head. "Carry them on their belts." Hetossed it on the table, and began searching another knocked-outhierophant. "Like this--_Hey!_ Look at this, will you!"
He drew his hand from under the left side of the senseless man's robeand held up a sigma-ray needler. Verkan Vall looked at it and noddedgrimly.
"Had it in a regular shoulder holster," the policeman said, handingthe weapon across the table. "What do you think?"
"Find anything else funny on him?"
"Wait a minute." The policeman pulled open the robe and beganstripping the priest of Muz-Azin; Verkan Vall came around the table tohelp. There was nothing else of a suspicious nature.
"Could have got it from one of the prisoners, but I don't like thefamiliar way he's wearing that holster," Verkan Vall said. "Has theconveyer gone back, yet?" When the policeman nodded, he continued:"When it returns, take him to the First Level. I hope they bring upthe sleep-drug with the next load. When you get him back, take him toDhergabar by strato-rocket immediately, and make sure he gets backalive. I want him questioned under narco-hypnosis by a regularParatime Commission psycho-technician, in the presence of Chief TorthaKarf and some responsible Commission official. This is going to be hotstuff."
Within an hour, the whole force was assembled in the temple. Thewooden screen had presented no problem--it slid easily to oneside--and the big idol floated on antigravity in the middle of thetemple. Verkan Vall was looking anxiously at his watch.
"It's about two hours to sunset," he said, to Stranor Sleth. "But asyou pointed out, these Hulguns aren't astronomers, and it's a bitcloudy. I wish Crannar Jurth would call in with something definite."
Another twenty minutes passed. Then the man at the radio came out intothe temple.
"O. K.!" he called. "The man at Crannar Jurth's called in. CrannarJurth contacted him with a midget radio he has up his sleeve; he's inthe palace courtyard now. They haven't brought out the victims, yet,but Kurchuk has just been carried out on his throne to that platformin front of the citadel. Big crowd gathering in the inner courtyard;more in the streets outside. Palace gates are wide open."
"That's it!" Verkan Vall cried. "Form up; the parade's starting.Brannad, you and Tammand and Stranor and I in front; about ten menwith paralyzers a little behind us. Then Yat-Zar, about ten feet offthe ground, and then the others. Forward--_ho-o!_"
* * * * *
They emerged from the temple and started down the broad roadway towardthe palace. There was not much of a crowd, at first. Most of Zurb hadflocked to the palace earlier; the lucky ones in the courtyard and thelate comers outside. Those whom they did meet stared at them inopen-mouthed amazement, and then some, remembering their doubts andblasphemies, began howling for forgiveness. Others--a substantialmajority--realizing that it would be upon King Kurchuk that the realweight of Yat-Zar's six hands would fall, took to their heels, tryingto put as much distance as possible between them and the palace beforethe blow fell.
As the procession approached the palace gates, the crowds werethicker, made up of those who had been unable to squeeze themselvesinside. The panic was worse, here, too. A good many were trampled andhurt in the rush to escape, and it became necessary to use paralyzersto clear a way. That made it worse: everybody was sure that Yat-Zarwas striking sinners dead left and right.
Fortunately, the gates were high enough to let the god through withoutlosing altitude appreciably. Inside, the mob surged back, clearing away across the courtyard. It was only necessary to paralyze a fewhere, and the levitated idol and its priestly attendants advancedtoward the stone platform, where the king sat on his throne, flankedby court functionaries and black-robed priests of Muz-Azin. In frontof this, a rank of Chuldun archers had been drawn up.
"Horv;
move Yat-Zar forward about a hundred feet and up about fifty,"Verkan Vall directed. "Quickly!"
As the six-armed anthropomorphic idol rose and moved closer toward itssaurian rival, Verkan Vall drew his needler, scanning the assemblagearound the throne anxiously.
"_Where is the wicked King?_" a voice thundered--the voice of StranorSleth, speaking into a midget radio tuned to the loud-speaker insidethe idol. "_Where is the blasphemer and desecrator, Kurchuk?_"
"There's Labdurg, in the red tunic, beside the throne," Tammand Dravwhispered. "And that's Ghromdur, the Muz-Azin high priest, besidehim."
Verkan Vall nodded, keeping his eyes on the group on the