This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. The answer by H. Beam Piper. For a moment after the screen door snapped and wakened him, Lee Richardson sat breathless and motionless, his eyes still closed, trying desperately to cling to the dream and print it upon his conscious memory before it faded. "'Are you there, Lee?' he heard Alexis Petop's voice. "'Yes, I'm here. What time is it?' he asked, and then added. "'I fell asleep. I was dreaming.' It was all right. He was going to be able to remember. He could still see the slim woman with the graying blonde hair, playing with the little doxin among the new fallen leaves on the lawn. He was glad they both been in his dream together. These dream glimpses were all he'd had for the last fifteen years, and they were too precious to lose. He opened his eyes. The Russian was sitting just outside the light from the open door of the bungalow, lighting a cigarette. For a moment he could see the blocky, high-cheeked face, now pouched and wrinkled, and then the flame went out and there was only the red coal glowing in the darkness. He closed his eyes again, and the dream picture came back to him, the woman catching the little dog and raising her head as though to speak to him. See of time yet? Pitoff was speaking German instead of Spanish, as they always did between themselves. They're still counting down from minus three hours. I just phoned the launching site for a jeep. Eugenio's been there ever since dinner.  He chuckled. This would be something new for Eugenio Galvez, for which he could be thankful. I hope the generators don't develop any last-second bugs, he said. We'll only be a mile and a half away, and that'll be too close to fifty kilos of negamatter if the field collapses. It'll be all right, Pitoff assured him. The bugs have all been chased out years ago. Not out of those generators in the rocket, they're new. He fumbled in his coat pocket for his pipe and tobacco. I never thought I'd run another nuclear bomb test as long as I lived. Lee! Pitoff was shocked. You mustn't call it that. It isn't that at all. It's purely a scientific experiment. Wasn't that all any of them were? We made lots of experiments like this, back before 1969. The memories of all those other tests, each ending in an everest high mushroom column, rose in his mind. And the end result, the United States and the Soviet Union blasted to rubble, a whole hemisphere pushed back into the dark ages a quarter of a billion dead. Including a slim woman with graying blonde hair and a little red dog. And a girl from Odessa whom Alexis Pitoff had been going to marry. Forgive me, Alexis. I just couldn't help remembering. I suppose it's this shot we're going to make tonight. It's so much like the other ones before—he hesitated slightly—before the all-burn bomb. There! He'd come out and said it. In all the years they'd worked together at the Instituto Argentina de Ciencia Física, that had been unmentioned between them. The families of hanged cutthroats avoid mention of ropes and knives. He thumbed the old-fashioned American lighter and held it to his pipe. Across the veranda, in the darkness, he knew that Pitoff was looking intently at him. You've been thinking about that lately, haven't you, the Russian asked, and then timidly. Was that what you were dreaming of? Oh, no, thank heaven! I think about it too, always. I suppose he seemed relieved now that it had been brought out into the open and could be discussed. You saw it fall, didn't you? That's right, from about thirty miles away. A little closer than will be to this shot tonight. I was in charge of the investigation at Auburn, until we had New York, and Washington, and Detroit, and Mobile, and San Francisco to worry about. Then what had happened to Auburn wasn't important any more. We were trying to get evidence to lay before the United Nations. We kept at it for about twelve hours after the United Nations had ceased to exist. I could never understand about that, Lee. I don't know what the truth is. I probably never shall. But I know that my government did not launch that missile. During the first days after yours began coming in, I talked to people who had been in the Kremlin at the time. One had been in the presence of Klesenko himself when the news of your bombardment arrived. He said that Klesenko was absolutely stunned. We always believed that your government decided upon the preventive surprise attack, and picked out a town, Auburn, New York, that had been hit by one of our first retaliation missiles, and claimed that it had been hit first. He shook his head. Auburn was hit an hour before the first American missile was launched. I know that to be a fact. We could never understand why you'd launched just that one, and no more until ours began landing on you, why you threw away the advantage of surprise and priority of attack. Because we didn't do it, Lee! The Russians' voice trembled with earnestness. You believe me when I tell you that? Yes, I believe you. After all that happened, and all that you and I, and the people you worked with, and the people I worked with, and your government and mine have been guilty of, it would be a waste of breath for either of us to try to lie to the other about what happened fifteen years ago, he drew slowly on his pipe. But who launched it then? It had to be launched by somebody. Don't you think I'd been tormenting myself with that question for the last fifteen years, Pitov demanded? You know, there were people inside the Soviet Union, not many, and they kept themselves well hidden, who were dedicated to the overthrow of the Soviet regime. They, or some of them, might have thought that the devastation of both our countries and the obliteration of civilization in the northern hemisphere would be a cheap price to pay for the ending of the rule of the Communist Party. Could they have built an ICBM with a thermonuclear warhead in secret, he asked. There were also fanatical nationalist groups in Europe, both sides of the Iron Curtain, who might have thought our mutual destruction would be worth the risks involved. There was China and India.  In the end they all went down with us, but what criminal ever expects to fall. We have too many suspects and the trail's too cold, Alexis. That rocket wouldn't have had to have been launched anywhere in the northern hemisphere. For instance, our friends here in the Argentine had been doing very well by themselves since el Coloso del Norte went down. And there were the Australians picking themselves up bargains in real estate in the East Indies at gunpoint. And there were the Boers trekking north again in tanks instead of ox wagons. And Brazil, with a not too implausible pretender to the Braganza throne, calling itself the Portuguese Empire and looking eastward. And to complete the picture, here were Professor Dr. Lee Richardson and Comrade Professor Alexis Petrovich Petov getting ready to test a missile with a matter annihilation warhead. No, this thing just wasn't a weapon. A jeep came around the corner, lighting the dark roadway between the bungalows, its radio on and counting down. Twenty-two minutes. Twenty-one fifty-nine. Fifty-eight. Fifty-seven. It came to a stop in front of their bungalow at exactly minus two hours, twenty-one minutes, fifty-four seconds. The driver called out in Spanish. Dr. Richardson, Dr. Petov, are you ready? Yes, ready. We're coming. They both got to their feet, Richardson pulling himself up reluctantly. The older you get, the harder it is to leave a comfortable chair. He settled himself beside his colleague and former enemy, and the jeep started again, rolling between the buildings of the living-quarters area and out onto the long straight road across the pompas toward the distant blaze of electric lights. He wondered why he had been thinking so much, lately, about the Auburn bomb. He'd questioned, at times, indignantly, of course, whether Russia had launched it. But it wasn't until to-night, until he had heard what Petov had had to say, that he seriously doubted it. Petov wouldn't lie about it, and Petov would have been in position to have known the truth, if the missile had been launched from Russia. Then he stopped thinking about what was water, or blood, a long time over the dam. The special policeman at the entrance to the launching site reminded them that they were both smoking. When they extinguished, respectively, their cigarette and pipe, he waved the jeep on and went back to his argument with a carload of tourists who wanted to get a good view of the launching. There now, Lee, do you need anything else to convince you that this isn't a weapon project?" Petov asked. No. Now that you mention it, I don't. You know, I don't believe I've had to show an identity card the whole time I've been here. I don't believe I have an identity card, Petov said. Think of that. The lights blazed everywhere around them, but mostly about the rocket that towered above everything else, so thick that it seemed squat. The gantry cranes had been hauled away now, and it stood alone, but it was still wreathed in thick electric cables. They were pouring enough current into that thing to light half the streetlights in Buenos Aires. When the cables were blown free by separation charges at the blast-off, the generators powered by the rocket engines had better be able to take over, because if the magnetic field collapsed and that fifty kilo chunk of negative proton matter came in contact with natural positive proton matter, an old-fashioned H-bomb would be a firecracker to what would happen. Just one hundred kilos of pure, two-hundred-proof MC2. The driver took them around the rocket, dodging assorted trucks and mobile machinery that were being hurried out of the way. The countdown was just beyond two hours, five minutes. The jeep stopped at the edge of a crowd around three more trucks, and Dr. Eugenio Galvez, the director of the institute, left the crowd and approached at an awkward half-run as they got down. "'Is everything checked, gentlemen?' he wanted to know. "'It was this afternoon at seventeen-thirty,' Pitov told him, and nobody's been burning my telephone to report anything different. Are the balloons on the drone planes ready?' The Air Force just finished checking. They're ready. Captain Urquiola flew one of the planes over the course and made a guidance tape. That's been duplicated, and all the planes are equipped with copies. "'How's the wind?' Richardson asked. "'Still steady. We won't have any trouble about fall-out or with the balloons. Then we'd better get back to the bunker and make sure everybody there is on the job.' The loudspeaker was counting down to two hours, one minute. "'Could you spare a few minutes to talk to the press?' Eugenio Galvez asked. "'And perhaps say a few words for telecast? This last is most important. We can't explain too many times the purpose of this experiment. There is still much hostility, arising from fear that we are testing a nuclear weapon.' The press and telecast services were well represented. There were close to a hundred correspondents from all over South America, from South Africa and Australia, even one from Ceylon. They had three trucks, with mobile telecast pickups, and when they saw who was approaching they released the two rocketry experts they had been quizzing and pounced on the new victims. Was there any possibility that negative proton matter might be used as a weapon? "'Anything can be used as a weapon. You could stab a man to death with that lead pencil you're using,' Pitov replied. "'But I doubt if negamatter will ever be so used. We are certainly not working on weapons design here. We started, six years ago, with the ability to produce negative protons, reverse spin neutrons and positrons, and the theoretical possibility of assembling them into negamatter. We have just gotten a fifty kilogram mass of nega-iron assembled. In those six years we had to invent all our techniques and design all our equipment. If we'd been insane enough to want to build a nuclear weapon, after what we went through up north, we could have done so from memory and designed a better, which is to say a worse, one from memory in a few days. Yes, and building a negamatter bomb for military purposes would be like digging a fifty-foot shaft to get a rock to bash somebody's head in, when you could do the job better with the shovel you were digging with," Richardson added. "'The time, money, energy, and work we put in on this thing would be ample to construct twenty thermonuclear bombs. And that's only a small part of it.' He went on to tell them about the magnetic bottle inside the rocket's warhead, mentioning how much electric current was needed to keep up the magnetic field that insulated the negamatter from contact with posamatter. Then what was the purpose of this experiment, Dr. Richardson?' "'Oh, we were just trying to find out a few basic facts about natural structure. Long ago it was realized that the nucleonic particles – protons, neutrons, mesons, and so forth – must have structure of their own. Since we started constructing negative proton matter, we found out a few things about nucleonic structure, some rather odd things, including fractions of Planck's constant.' "'A couple of the correspondence, a man from La Prensa and an Australian, whistled softly. The others looked blank.' Petov took over. "'You see, gentlemen, most of what we learned we learned from putting negamatter atoms together. We annihilated a few of them, over there in that little concrete building. We have one of the most massive steel vaults in the world where we do that. But we assembled millions of them for every one we annihilated. And that chunk of nega-iron inside the magnetic puddle kept growing. And when you have a piece of negamatter you don't want, you can't just throw it out on the scrap pile. We might have rocketed it into escape velocity and let it blow up in space, away from the moon or any of the artificial satellites, but why waste it? So we're going to have the rocket ejected, and when it falls, we can see by our telemetered instruments just what happens." "'Well, won't it be annihilated by contact with atmosphere?' somebody asked." "'That's one of the things we want to find out,' Petov said. We estimate about twenty percent lost from contact with atmosphere, but the mass that actually lands on the target area should be about forty kilos. It should be something of a spectacle coming down.' "'You say you had to assemble it, after creating the negative protons and neutrons and positrons. Doesn't any of this sort of matter exist in nature?' The man who asked that knew better himself, he just wanted the answer on the record." "'Oh, no. Not on this planet, and probably not in the galaxy. There may be whole galaxies composed of nothing but negamatter. There may even be isolated stars and planetary systems inside our galaxy composed of negamatter, though I think that's very improbable. But when negamatter and posamatter come into contact with one another, the result is immediate mutual annihilation.' They managed to get away from the press and returned as far as the bunkers, a mile and a half away. Before they went inside, Richardson glanced up at the sky, fixing the location of a few of the more conspicuous stars in his mind. There were almost a hundred men and women inside, each at his or her instruments, view screens, radar indicators, detection instruments of a dozen kinds. The reporters and telecast people arrived shortly afterward, and Eugenio Galvez took them in tow. While Richardson and Petov were making their last-minute rounds, the countdown progressed past minus one hour, and at minus twenty minutes all the overhead lights went off and the small instrument operator's lights came on. Petov turned on a couple of view screens, one from a pickup on the roof of the bunker and another from the launching pad. They sat down, side by side, and waited. Richardson got his pipe out and began loading it. The loudspeaker was saying, minus two minutes, one fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven. He led his mind drift away from the test, back to the world that had been smashed around his ears in the autumn of 1969. He was doing that so often now, when he should be thinking about, two seconds, one second, firing. It was a second later that his eyes focused on the left-hand view-screen. Red and yellow flames were gushing out at the bottom of the rocket, and it was beginning to tremble. Then the upper jets, the ones that furnished power for the generators, began firing. He looked anxiously at the meters. The generators were building up power. Finally, when he was sure that the rocket would be blasting off anyhow, the separator charges fired and the heavy cables fell away. An instant later the big missile started inching upward, gaining speed by the second, first slowly and jerkily, and then more rapidly until it passed out of the field of the pickup. He watched the rising spout of fire from the other screen until it passed from sight. By that time, Petov had twisted a dial and gotten another view on the left-hand screen, this time from close to the target. That camera was radar-controlled. It had fastened on to the approaching missile which was still invisible. The stars swung slowly across the screen until Richardson recognized the ones he had spotted at the zenith. In a moment now, the rocket, a hundred miles overhead, would be nosing down, and then the warhead would open and the magnetic field inside would alter and the mass of Negamatter would be ejected. The stars were blotted out by a sudden glow of light. Even at a hundred miles there was enough atmospheric density to produce considerable energy release. Petov, beside him, was muttering, partly in German and partly in Russian, most of what Richardson caught was figures, trying to calculate how much of the mass of unnatural iron would get down for the ground blast. Then the right-hand screen broke into a wriggling orgy of color, and at the same time every scrap of radio-transmitted apparatus either went out or began reporting erratically. The left-hand screen, connected by wiring to the pickup on the roof, was still functioning. For a moment Richardson wondered what was going on, and then shocked recognition drove that from his mind as he stared at the ever-brightening glare in the sky. It was the auburn bomb again. He was back, in memory, to the night on the shore of Lake Ontario, the party breaking up in the early hours of morning, he and Janet and the people with whom they had been spending a vacation week standing on the lawn as the guests were getting into their cars, and then the sudden light in the sky, the cries of surprise and then of alarm as it seemed to be rushing straight down upon them. He and Janet clutching each other and staring up in terror at the falling blaze from which there seemed no escape. Then relief as it curved away from them and fell to the south. And then the explosion, lighting the whole southern sky. There was a similar explosion in the screen, when the mass of nega iron landed, a sheet of pure white light, so bright and so quick as to almost pass the limit of visibility. And then a moment's darkness that was in his stunned eyes more than in the screen, and then the rising glow of up-drawn incandescent dust. Before the sound waves had reached them he had been legging it into the house. The television had been on, and it had been acting as insanely as a screen on his right now. He had called the state police, the telephones had been working all right, and told them who he was, and they had told him to stay put and they'd send a car for him. They did within minutes.  He had seen her and the dog like that every day of his life for the last fifteen years. What kind of radiation are you getting? He could hear Alexis Pitov asking into a phone. What? Nothing else? Oh yes, of course. But mostly cosmic. That shouldn't last long. He turned from the phone. A devil's own dose of cosmic and some gamma. It was the cosmic radiation that put the radios and telescreens out. That's why I insisted that the drone planes be independent of radio control. They always got cosmic radiation from the micro-annihilations in the test vault. Well, now they had an idea of what produced natural cosmic rays. There must be quite a bit of negamatter and posamatter going into mutual annihilation and total energy release through the universe. Of course there were no detectors set up in advance around Auburn, he said. We didn't really begin to find anything out for an hour. By that time the cosmic radiation was over and we weren't getting anything but gamma. What? What has Auburn to do? The Russians stopped short. You think this was the same thing? He gave it a moment's consideration. Lee, you're crazy. There wasn't an atom of artificial negamatter in the world in 1969. Nobody had made any before us. We gave each other some scientific surprises then, but nobody surprised both of us. You and I, between us, knew everything that was going on in nuclear physics in the world. And you know as well as I do. A voice came out of the public address speaker. Some of the radio equipment around the target area that wasn't knocked out by blast is beginning to function again. There is an increasingly heavy gamma radiation but no more cosmic rays. They were all prompt radiation from the annihilation. The gamma is secondary effect. Wait a moment. Captain Urquiola of the Air Force says that the first drone plane is about to take off. It had been two hours after the blast that the first drones had gone over what had been Auburn, New York. He was trying to remember as exactly as possible what had been learned from them. Gamma radiation, a great deal of gamma. But it didn't last long. It had been almost down to a safe level by the time the investigation had been called off, and two months after there had been no more missiles and no way of producing more, and no targets to send them against if they had had them rather, he had been back at Auburn on his hopeless quest, and there had been almost no trace of radiation. Nothing but a wide shallow crater, almost two hundred feet in diameter, and only fifteen at its deepest, already full of water, and a circle of flattened and scattered rubble for a mile and a half all around it. He was willing to bet anything that that was what they'd find where that chunk of nega-iron had landed fifty miles away on the Pampas. Well, the first drone ought to be over the target area before long, and at least one of the balloons that had been sent up was reporting its course by radio. The radios and the others were silent, and the recording counters had probably jammed in all of them. There'd be something of interest when the first drone came back. He dragged his mind back to the present, and it went to work with Alexis Petov. They were at it all night, checking, evaluating, making sure that the masses of data that were coming in were being promptly processed for programming the computers. At each of the increasingly frequent coffee breaks he noticed Petov looking curiously. He said nothing, however, until long after dawn they stood outside the bunker, waiting for the jeep that would take them back to their bungalow and watching the line of trucks. Argentine army engineers, locally hired laborers, load after load of prefab huts and equipment, going down toward the target area, where they would be working for the next week. Leigh, were you serious? Petov asked. I mean about this being like the one at Auburn. It was exactly like Auburn. Even that blazing light that came rushing down out of the sky. I wondered about that at the time. What kind of a missile would produce an effect like that? Now I know. We just launched one like it. But that's impossible! I told you, between us we know everything that was happening in nuclear physics then. Nobody in the world knew how to assemble atoms of negamatter and build them into masses. Nobody and nothing on this planet built that mass of negamatter. I doubt if it even came from this galaxy. But we didn't know that then. When that negamatter meteor fell, the only thing anybody could think of was that it had been a Soviet missile. If it had hid around Leningrad or Moscow or Karkov, who would you have blamed it on? The end of The Answer by H. Beam Piper. This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Mark Nelson. Temple Trouble by H. Beam Piper. Part 1. Through a haze of incense and altar smoke, Yat-Zar looked down from his golden throne at the end of the dusky, many-pillared temple. Yat-Zar was an idol of gigantic size and extraordinarily good workmanship. He had three eyes made of turquoise as big as doorknobs, 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 vaguely phallic appearance, and by the ears a rabbit. In his left hands were a bronze torch with burnished copper flames, a big goblet, and a pair of scales with an egg in one pan balanced against a skull in the other. He had a long bifurcate beard made of gold wire, feet like a bird's, and other rather startling anatomical features. His throne was set upon a stone plinth about twenty feet high, into the front of which a doorway opened. Behind him was a wooden screen, elaborately gilded and painted. Directly in front of the idol, Gullum the High Priest knelt on a big blue and gold cushion.  He was intoning a prayer and holding up in both hands for divine inspection and approval a long curved knife. Behind him, about thirty feet away, stood a square stone altar, around which four of the lesser priests, in light blue robes with less gold fringe and dark blue false beards, were busy with the preliminaries to the sacrifice. At considerable distance, about half way down the length of the temple, some two hundred worshipers. A few substantial citizens in gold-fringed tunics, artisans in tunics without gold fringe, soldiers in male haubirks and plain steel caps, one officer in ornately gilded armor, a number of peasants in nondescript smocks and women of all classes, were beginning to prostrate themselves on the stone floor. Some rose to his feet, bowing deeply to Yat-Zar, and holding the knife extended in front of him and backed away toward the altar. As he did, one of the lesser priests reached into a fringed and embroidered sack and pulled out a live rabbit, a big one, obviously a domestic breed, holding it by the ears, while one of his fellows took it by the hind legs. A third priest caught up a silver pitcher, while the fourth fan turned the altar fire with a sheet-silver fan. As they began chanting antiphonally, Gullum turned and quickly whipped the edge of his knife across the rabbit's throat. The priest with the pitcher stepped in to catch the blood, and when the rabbit was bled it was laid on the fire. Gullum and his four assistants all shouted together 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 cushion and went through the door under the idol into the holy of holies. A boy in novice's white robes met him and took the knife, carrying it reverently to a fountain for washing. Eight or ten under-priests, sitting at a long table, rose and bowed, then sat down again and resumed their eating and drinking. At another table a half-dozen upper-priests nodded to him in casual greeting. Crossing the room, Gullum went to the triple veil in front of the house of Yat-Zar, where only the highest of the priesthood might go, and parted the curtains, passing through until he came to the great gilded door. Here he fumbled under his robe and produced a small object like a mechanical pencil, inserting the pointed end in a tiny hole in the door and pressing on the other end. The door opened, then swung shut behind him, and, as it locked itself, the lights came on within. Gullum removed his mitre and his false beard, tossing them aside on a table, then undid his sash and peeled out of his robe. His regalia discarded, he stood for a moment in loose trousers and a soft white shirt, with a pistol-like weapon in a shoulder holster under his left arm. No longer Gullum the high priest of Yat-Zar, but now Stranor Sleth, resident agent on this timeline, of the fourth level proto-Aryan sector for the Trans-Temporal Mining Corporation. Then he opened a door at the other side of the anti-room and went to the anti-grab shaft, stepping over the edge and floating downward. There were temples of Yat-Zar on every timeline of the proto-Aryan sector, for the worship of Yat-Zar was ancient among the Hulgun people of that area of paratime. But there were only a few which had such installations as this, and all of them were owned and operated by Trans-Temporal Mining, which had the fissionable ores franchise for this sector. During the ten elapsed centuries since Trans-Temporal had begun operations on this sector, the process had become standardized. A few first-level paratimers would transpose to a selected timeline and abduct an upper priest of Yat-Zar, preferably the high priest of the temple at Yoldav or Zurb. He would be drugged and transposed to the first level, where he would receive hypnotic indoctrination and, while unconscious, have an operation performed on his ears which would enable him to hear sounds well above the normal audible range. He would be able to hear the shrill sonar cries of bats, for instance, and, more important, he would be able to hear voices when the speaker used a first-level audio frequency step-up phone. He would also receive a memory obliteration from the moment of his abduction and a set of pseudo-memories of a visit to the heaven of Yat-Zar on the other side of the sky. Then he would be returned to his own timeline and left on a mountaintop far from his temple, where an unknown peasant, leading a donkey, would always find him, return him to the temple, and then vanish inexplicably. Then the priest would begin hearing voices, usually while serving at the altar. They would warn of future events which would always come to pass exactly as foretold. Or they might bring tidings of things happening at a distance, the news of which would not arrive by normal means for days or even weeks. Before long the holy man who had been carried alive to the heaven of Yat-Zar would acquire a most awesome reputation as a prophet, and would speedily rise to the very top of the priestly hierarchy. Then he would receive two commandments from Yat-Zar. The first would ordain that all lower priests must travel about from temple to temple, never staying longer than a year at any one place. This would ensure a steady influx of newcomers, personally unknown to the local upper priests, and many of them would be first-level paratimers. Then there would be a second commandment. A house must be built for Yat-Zar, against the rear wall of each temple. Its dimensions were minutely 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 from within.  Sometime such innovations met with opposition from the more conservative members of the hierarchy. When they did, the principal 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, strange noises would be heard from behind the thick walls. Then, after a while, one of the younger priests would announce that he had been commanded in a vision to go behind the veil and knock upon the door. Going behind the curtains he would use his door activator to let himself in, and return by paratime conveyor to the first level to enjoy a well earned vacation. When the high priest would follow him behind the veil after a few hours and find that he had vanished it would be announced as a miracle. A week later an even greater miracle would be announced. The young priest would be returned from behind the triple veil, clad in such raiment as no man had ever seen, and bearing in his hands a strange box. He would announce that Yat-Zar had commanded him to build a new temple in the mountains, at a place to be known by the voice of the God speaking out of the box. This time there would be no doubts and no objections. A procession would set out, headed by the new revelator bearing the box, and when the clicking voice of the God spoke rapidly out of it, the sight would be marked and the work would begin. No local labor would ever be employed on such temples. The masons and wood-workers would be strangers, coming from afar and speaking a strange tongue. And when the temple was completed they would never be seen to leave it. Men would say that they had been put to death by the priest, and buried under the altar to preserve the secrets of the God. And there would always be an idol to preserve the secrets of the God. And there would always be an idol of Yat-Zar, obviously of heavenly origin, since its workmanship was beyond the powers of any local craftsmen. The priests of such a temple would be exempt, by divine decree, from the rule of yearly travel. Nobody, of course, would have the least idea that there was a uranium mine in operation under it, shipping ore to another timeline. The Hogan people knew nothing about uranium, and neither did they as much as dream that there were other timelines. The secret of paratime transposition belonged exclusively to the first-level civilization which had discovered it, and it was a secret that was guarded well. Stranorth sleth, dropping to the bottom of the antigrav shaft, cast a hasty and instinctive glance to the right, where the freight conveyors were. One was gone, taking its cargo over hundreds of thousands of para-years to the first level. Another had just returned, empty, and a third was receiving its cargo from the robot mining-machines far back under the mountain. Two young men and a girl, in first-level costumes, sat at a bank of instruments and visor screens, handling the whole operation, and six or seven armed guards, having inspected the newly arrived conveyor and finding that it had picked up nothing inimical en route, were relaxing and lighting cigarettes. Three of them, Stranorth sleth noticed, wore the green uniforms of the paratime police. When did those fellows get in, he asked the people at the control desk, nodding toward the green-clad newcomers. About ten minutes ago on the passenger conveyor, the girl told him, the big boys here, Branad Klav, and a paratime police officer. They're in your office. Uh-huh, I was expecting that, Stranorth sleth nodded. Then he turned down the corridor to the left. Two men were waiting for him in his office. One was short and stocky, with an angry, impatient face, Branad Klav, trans-temporal's vice president in charge of operations. The other was tall and slender, with handsome and entirely expressionless features. He wore a paratime police officer's uniform, with a blue badge of hereditary nobility on his breast, and carried a Sigma Ray needler in a belt holster. Were you waiting long, gentlemen? Stranorth sleth asked. I was holding a sunset sacrifice up in the temple. No, we just got here, Branad Klav said. This is Verkan Val, Maverad of Narros, special assistant to Chief Tortha of the Paratime Police. Stranorth sleth, our resident agent here. Stranorth sleth touched hands with Verkan Val. I've heard a lot about you, sir, he said. Everybody working in Paratime has, of course. I'm sorry we have a situation here that calls for your presence, but since we have, I'm glad you're here in person. You know what our trouble is, I suppose. In a general way, Verkan Val replied. Chief Tortha and Branad Klav have given me the main outline, but I'd like to have you fill in the details. Well, I told you everything, Branad Klav interrupted impatiently.  If I—he stopped short, catching sight of the shoulder holster under Stranorth's sleth's left arm. Were you wearing that needler up in the temple, he demanded? You're blasted right I was, Stranorth sleth retorted, and any time I can't arm myself for my own protection on this timeline, you can have my resignation. I'm not getting into the same jam as those people at Zurb. Well, never mind about that, Verkan Val intervened. Of course, Stranorth sleth has a right to arm himself. I wouldn't think of being caught without a weapon on this timeline myself. Now, Stranorth, suppose you tell me what's been happening here, from the beginning of this trouble. It started, really, about five years ago, when Kirk Chuck, the king of Zurb, married this Chul'den princess, Dareth, from the country over beyond the Black Sea, and made her his queen over the heads of about a dozen daughters of the local nobility, whom he'd married previously. Then he brought in this Chul'den scribe, Labdurg, and made him overseer of the kingdom, roughly Prime Minister. There was a lot of dissatisfaction about that, and for a while it looked as though he was going to have a revolution on his hands. But he brought in about five thousand Chul'den mercenaries, all archers.  So the dissatisfaction died down, and so did most of the leaders of the disaffected group. The story I get is that this Labdurg arranged the marriage in the first place. It looks to me as though the Chul'den emperor is intending to take over the Hogan kingdoms, starting with Zurb. Well, these Chul'dens all worship a god called Muz Azin. Muz Azin is a crocodile with wings like a bat and a lot of knife blades in his tail. He makes this Yadzar look downright beautiful. So do his habits. Muz Azin fancies human sacrifices. The victims are strung up by the ankles on a triangular frame and lash to death with iron-barbed whips. Nasty sort of deity, but this is a nasty timeline. The people here get a big kick out of watching these sacrifices. Much better show than our bunny-killing. The victims are usually criminals or overage or incorrigible slaves or prisoners of war. Of course, when the Chul'dens began infiltrating the palace, they brought in their crocodile god too, and a flock of priests, and King Kerchuk let them set up a temple in the palace. Naturally we preached against this heave and idolatry in our temples, but religious bigotry isn't one of the numerous imperfections of this sector. Everybody's deity is as good as anybody else's. Indifferentism, I believe, is the theological term. Anyhow, on that basis things went along fairly well, till two years ago when we had this run of bad luck. Bad luck, branded Klaav snorted. That's the standing excuse of every incompetent. Go on, Stranor. What sort of bad luck? Verkan Vahl asked. Well, first we had a drought, beginning in early summer that burned up most of the grain crop. Then, when that broke, we got heavy rains and hailstorms and floods, and that destroyed what got through the dry spell. When they harvested what little was left, it was obvious there'd be a famine, so we brought in a lot of grain by conveyor and distributed it from the temples. Miraculous gift of Yatsar, of course. Then the main office on first level got scared about flooding this timeline with a lot of unaccountable grain and were afraid we'd make the people suspicious and ordered it stopped. Then, Kerchuk, and I might add that the Kingdom of Zurb was the hardest hit by the famine, ordered his army mobilize and started an invasion of the Jumdan country, south of the Carpathians, to get grain. He got his army chopped up, and only about a quarter of them got back with no grain. You ask me, I'd say that Labdirk framed it to happen that way. He advised Kerchuk to invade in the first place, and I mentioned my suspicion that Chombrog, the Chuldan Emperor, is planning to move in on the Hulgan Kingdoms. Well, what would be smarter than to get Kerchuk's army smashed in advance? How did the defeat occur, Birkenval asked? Any suspicion of treachery? Nothing you could put your finger on, except that the Jumdans seem to have pretty good intelligence about Kerchuk's invasion route and battle plans.  See, these Hulgens, and particularly the Zurb Hulgens, are spearmen. They fight in a fairly thin line, with heavy-armed infantry in front and light infantry with throwing spears behind. The nobles fight in light chariots, usually at the center of the line. And that's where they were at this battle of Jorm. Kerchuk himself was at the center with his Chuldan archers massed around him. The Jumdans use a lot of cavalry, with long swords and lances, and a lot of big chariots with two javelin men and a driver. Well, instead of ramming into Kerchuk's center, where he had his archers, they hit the extreme left and folded it up, and then swung around behind and hit the right from the rear. All the Chuldan archers did was stand fast around the king and shoot anybody who came close to them. They were left pretty much alone. But the Hulgan spearmen were cut to pieces. The battle ended with Kerchuk and his nobles and his archers making a fighting retreat, while the Jumdan cavalry were chasing the spearmen every which way and cutting them down or lancing them as they ran. Well, whether it was Labdurg's treachery or Kerchuk's stupidity, in either case it was natural for the archers to come off easiest and the Hulgan spearmen to pay the butcher's bill. But try and tell these knuckleheads anything like that. Muz Azin protected the Chuldans and Yatzar let the Hulgans down, and that was all there was to it. The Zurb temple started losing worshippers, particularly the families of the men who didn't make it back from Jorm. If that had been all there been to it, though, it still wouldn't have hurt the mining operations and we could have got by. But what really tore it was when the rabbits started to die. Stranor Sluth picked up a cigar from his desk and bit the end spitting it out disgustedly. Tularimia, of course, he said, touching his lighter to the tip. When that hit they started going over to Muz Azin in droves. Not only at Zurb, but all over the six kingdoms. You ought to have seen the house we had for Sunset service this evening, about two hundred, and we used to get two thousand. It used to be all two men could do to lift the offering box at the door afterward, and all the money we took in to-night I could put in one pocket. The High Priest used language that would have been considered un-clerical even among the Hulgans. Verkan Vahl nodded. Even without the quicky hypnomech he had taken for this sector, he knew that the rabbit was domesticated among the proto-Aryan Hulgans and was their chief meat animal. Hulgan rabbits were even a minor import on the first level, and could be had at all the better restaurants in cities like Durgabar. He mentioned that. That's not the worst of it, Stranrasleth told him. See, the rabbits sacred to Yatsar. Not taboo, just sacred. They have to use a specially consecrated knife to kill them. Consecrating rabbit knives has always been an item of temple revenue, and they must say a special prayer before eating them. We could have got around the rest of it even the Battle of Jorm, punishment by Yatsar for the sin of apostasy, but Yatsar just wouldn't make rabbits sick. Yatsar thinks too well of rabbits to do that, and it had not been any use claiming he would. So there you are. Well, I take the attitude that this situation is the result of your incompetence, Brannet Clav began, in a bully-ragging tone. You're not only the High Priest of this temple, you're the acknowledged head of the religion in all the Hulgan kingdoms. You should have had more hold on the people than to allow anything like this to happen. Hold on the people, Stranrasleth fairly howled, appealing to work and vol. What does he think a religion is on this sector anyhow? You think these savages dreamed up that six-armed monstrosity up there to express their yearning for higher things, or to symbolize their moral ethos, or as a philosophical escape hatch from the dilemma of causation? They never even heard of such matters. On this sector, gods are strictly utilitarian. As long as they take care of their worshipers, they get their sacrifices. When they can't put out, they have to get out. How do you suppose these children, living in the Caucasus Mountains, got the idea of a god like a crocodile anyhow? Why, they got it from Hamran traders, people from down in the Nile Valley. They had a god once, something basically like a billy goat, but he let them get licked in a couple of battles, so out he went. Why all the deities on this sector have hyphenated names, because there are combinations of several deities worshipped in one person. Do you know anything about the history of this sector? He asked a paratime police officer. Well, it develops from an alternate probability of what we call the Nile Mesopotamian basic sector group, Verkan Vahl said. On most Nile Mesopotamian sectors, like the Macedonian Empire sector, or the Alexandrian Roman, or Alexandrian Punic, or Indo-Terranian or Europo-American, there was an Aryan invasion of Eastern Europe and Asia Minor about 4,000 elapsed years ago. On this sector, the ancestors of the Aryans came in about 15 centuries earlier, as Neolithic savages, about the time that the Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations were first developing, and overran all Southeast Europe, Asia Minor, and the Nile Valley. They developed the Bronze Age culture of the civilizations they overthrew, and then, more slowly, to an Iron Age culture. About 2,000 years ago, they were using hardened steel and building large stone cities, just as they do now. At that time they reached cultural stasis.  A god is only worshiped as long as the people think him powerful enough to aid and protect them.  He turned to Brannad Klav. Didn't Strannell report this situation to you when it first developed, he asked? I know he did. He speaks of receiving shipments of grain by conveyor for temple distribution. Then why didn't you report it to paratime police? That's what we have a paratime police force for! Well, yes, of course. But I had enough confidence in Stranner Sleth to think that he could handle the situation himself. I didn't know he'd gone slack. Look, I can't make weather, even if my parishioners think I can, Stranner Sleth defended himself. And I can't make a great military genius out of a blockhead like Kerchuk. And I can't immunize all the rabbits on this timeline against Tuileremia, even if I'd had any reason to expect a Tuileremia epidemic, which I hadn't, because the disease is unknown on this sector. This is the only outbreak of it anybody's ever heard of on any proto-Aryan timeline. No, but I'll tell you what you could have done, Verkenvall told him. When this Kerchuk started to apostasize, you could have gone to him at the head of a procession of priests, all paratimers, and all armed with energy weapons, and pointed out his spiritual duty to him. And if he gave you any back-talk, you could have pulled out that needler and raided him down, and then cried, Behold the vegance of Yadzar upon the wicked king! I'll bet any sum at any odds that his successor would have thought twice about going over to Mazazine, and none of these other kings would have even thought once about it. Ha! That's what I wanted to do, Straner Sleth exclaimed. And who stopped me? I'll give you just one guess. Well, it seems there was slackness here. But it wasn't Straner Sleth who was slack, Verkenvall commented. Well, I must say. I never thought I'd hear an officer of the paratime police criticizing me for trying to operate inside the paratime transposition code, Brannad Klav exclaimed. Verkenvall, sitting on the edge of Straner Sleth's desk, aimed his cigarette at Brannad Klav like a blaster. Now look, he began. There is one, and only one, inflexible law regarding out-time activities. The secret of paratime transposition must be kept in violate, and any activity tending to endanger it is prohibited. That's why we don't allow the transposition of any object of extraterrestrial origin to any timeline on which space travel has not been developed. Such an object may be preserved, and then, after the local population begin exploring the planet from whence it came, there will be dangerous speculations and theories as to how it arrived on Terra at such an early date. I came within inches, literally, of getting myself killed not long ago, cleaning up the result of a violation of that regulation. For the same reason we don't allow the export to out-time natives of manufactured goods too far in advance of their local culture. That's why, for instance, you people have to hand-finish all those big Yatzar idols to remove traces of machine work. One of those things may be around a few thousand years from now, when these people develop a mechanical civilization. But as far as rain down this kerchuk is concerned, these hulgans are completely non-scientific. They wouldn't have the least idea what happened. They'd believe that Yatzar struck him dead, as gods on this plane of culture are supposed to do. And, if any of them noticed the needler at all, they'd think it was just a holy amulet of some kind. But the law is the law, Brannad Clav began. Virkin Vall shook his head. Brannad, as I understand, you were promoted to your present position on the retirement of Salvan Marth, about ten years ago. Up to that time you were in your company's financial department. You were accustomed to working subject to the first level commercial regulations code. Now, any law binding upon our people at home on the first level is inflexible. It has to be. We found out over fifty centuries ago that laws have to be rigid and without discretionary powers in administration in order that people may be able to predict their effect and plan their activities accordingly. Naturally you became conditioned to operating in such a climate of legal inflexibility. But in paratime the situation is entirely different. There exists, within the range of the gal-drawn Hestor paratemporal field generator, a number of timelines of the order of ten to the hundred thousand's power. In effect, that many different worlds. In the past ten thousand years we have visited only the tiniest fraction of these. But we have found everything from timelines inhabited only by sub-human ape-men to second level civilizations which are our own equal in every respect but knowledge of paratemporal transposition. We even know of one second level civilization which is approaching the discovery of an interstellar hyperspatial drive, something we've never even come close to. And in between are every degree of savagery, barbarism, and civilization. Now it's just not possible to frame any single code of laws applicable to conditions on all of these. The best we can do is prohibit certain flagrantly immoral types of activity, such as slave trading, introduction of new types of narcotic drugs, or out-and-out piracy and brigandage. If you are in doubt as to the legality of anything you want to do out-time, go to the judicial section of the paratime commission and get an opinion on it. That's where you made your whole mistake. You didn't find out just how far it was allowable for you to go. He turned to Stranor Sleth again. Well, that's the background then. Now tell me about what happened yesterday at Zerb. Well, a week ago Kirchak came out with his decree closing our temple at Zerb, and ordering his subjects to perform worship and make money offerings to Mazazine. The Zerb temple isn't a mask for a mind. Zerb's too far south for the uranium deposits. It's just a center for propaganda and that sort of thing. But they have a house of Yat-Zar, and a conveyor, and most of the upper priests are paratimers. Well, our man there, Teman-Drav, alias Khoram, defied the king's order, so Kirchak sent a company of Cholden archers to close the temple and arrest the priests. Teman-Drav got all his people who were in the temple at the time into the house of Yat-Zar and transposed them back to the first level. He had orders, Stranor Sleth looked meaningly at Brannad Klav, not to resist with energy weapons or even ultrasonic paralyzers. And while we're on the subject of letting the local yokel see too much, about fifteen of the under-priests he took to the first level were Hulgun natives. Nothing wrong about that. They'll get memory obliteration and pseudo-memory treatment, Verkanval said, but he should have been allowed to needle about a dozen of those Choldens, teach the beggars to respect Yat-Zar in the future. Now, how about the six priests who are outside the temple at the time? All but one were paratimers. We'll have to find out about them and get them out of Zurb. That'll take some doing, Stranor Sleth said, and it'll have to be done before sunset to-morrow. They are all in the dungeon of the palace Citadel, and Kirchak is going to give them to the priests of Mazazine to be sacrificed to-morrow evening. How'd you learn that, Verkanval asked? Oh, we have a man in Zurb, not connected with the temple, Stranor Sleth said. Names Kranar Jirth, calls himself Kranjer, locally. He has a sword-maker's shop, employs about a dozen native journeymen and apprentices who hammer out the common blades he sells in the open market. Then he imports a few high-class alloy steel blades from the first level that'll cut through this local low-carbon armour like cheese, fits them with locally-made hilts, and sells them at unbelievable prices to the nobility. He sword-smiths to the king, picks up all the inside palace dope. Of course, he was among the first to accept the new gospel and go over to Mazazine. He has a secret room under his shop with his conveyor and radio. What happened was this. These six priests were at a consecration ceremony at a rabbit ranch outside the city, and they didn't know about the raid on the temple. On their way back they were surrounded by chuldon archers and taken prisoner. They had no weapons but their sacrificial knives. He threw another dirty look at Brannad Klav. So they're due to go up on the triangles at sunset tomorrow. We'll have to get them out before then, Verkan Vahl stated. They're our people and we can't let them down. Even the native is under our protection, whether he knows it or not.  Yatzar will be through on this timeline, and you'll be through along with him. And considering that you are fishnable's franchise for this sector comes up for renewal next year, your company will be through in this paratime area. You believe that would happen? Brannad Klav asked anxiously. I know it will, because I'll put through a recommendation to that effect if those six men are tortured to death tomorrow, Verkan Vahl replied. And in the fifty years that I've been in the police department, I've only heard of five such recommendations being ignored by the commission. You know, fourth-level mineral product syndicate is after your franchise. Ordinarily, they wouldn't have a chance of getting it, but with this maybe they will, even without my recommendation. This was all your fault for ignoring Stranor Strath's proposal and for denying those men the right to carry energy weapons. Well, we were only trying to stay inside the paratime code, Brannad Klav pleaded. If it isn't too late now, you can count on me for every cooperation. He fiddled with some papers on the desk. What do you want me to do to help? I'll tell you that in a minute. Verkan Vahl walked to the wall and looked at the map, then returned to Stranor Strath's desk. How about these dungeons, he asked. How are they located, and how can we get into them? I'm afraid we can't, Stranor Strath told him, not without fighting our way in. They're under a palisaddle, a hundred feet below ground. They're spatially co-existent with the heavy water barriers around one of our company's plutonium piles on the first level, and below surface on any unoccupied timeline I know of, so we can't transpose into them. This palace is really a walled city inside a city. Here, I'll show you. Going around the desk, he sat down, and after looking in the index screen, punched a combination on the keyboard. A picture, collected from the microfilm bank, appeared on the view screen. It was an air view of the city of Zurb, taken, the High Priest explained, by infrared light from an airboat over the city at night. It showed a city of an entirely pre-mechanical civilization, with narrow streets lined on either side by low one-and-two-story buildings. Although there would be considerable snow in winter, the roofs were usually flat, probably massive stone slabs supported by pillars within. Even in the poorer sections, this was true except for the very meanest houses and outbuildings which were thatched. Here and there some huge pile of masonry would rear itself above its lower neighbors, and, where the streets were wider, occasional groups of large buildings would be surrounded by battle-minted walls. Stranor Sleth indicated one of the larger of these. Here's the palace, he said, and here's the temple of Yadzar, about a half-mile away. He touched a large building occupying an entire block. Between it and the palace was a block-wide park, with lawns and trees on either side of a wide roadway connecting the two. Now here's a detailed view of the palace. He punched another combination. The view of the city was replaced by one taken from directly overhead of the walled palace area. Here's the main gate, in front, at the end of the road from the temple, he pointed out. Over here on the left are the slave's quarters and the stables and workshops and storehouses and so on. Over here, on the other side, are the noble's quarters. And this, he indicated, a towering structure at the rear of the walled enclosure. Is the citadel and the royal dwelling. Audience hall on this side, harem over here on this side. A wide stone platform, about fifteen feet high, runs completely across the front of the citadel, from the audience hall to the harem. Since this picture was taken, the new temple of Muzzezine was built right about here. He indicated that it extended out from the audience hall into the central courtyard. And out here on the platform they've put up about a dozen of these triangles, about twelve feet high, on which the sacrificial victims are whipped to death. Yes, about the only way we could get down to the dungeons would be to make an airdrop onto the citadel roof and fight our way down with needlers and blasters. And I'm not willing to do that as long as there's another way," Wurkenvall said. We'd lose men, even with needlers, against bows, and there's a chance that some of our equipment might be lost in the melee and fall into out-time hands. You say this sacrifice comes off at tomorrow at sunset? That would be about actual sunset, plus or minus an hour. These people aren't astronomers. They don't even have good sundials, and it might be a cloudy day, Stranor Sleth said. There'll be a big idol of Muzzezine on a cart set about here, he pointed. After the sacrifice it has to be dragged down this road outside to the temple of Yatzar and set up there. The temple is now occupied by about twenty Chul'dun mercenaries and five or six priests of Muzzezine. They haven't, of course, got into the house of Yatzar, the doors of impervium steel, about six inches thick, with a plating of collapsed nickel under the gilding. It would take a couple of hours to cut through it with our best atomic torch. There isn't a tool on this timeline, they could even scratch it. And the insides of the walls are lined with the same thing. Do you think our people have been tortured yet? Wurkenvall asked. No, Stranor Sleth was positive. They'll be fairly well treated until the sacrifice. The idea is to make them last as long as possible on the triangles. Muzzezine likes to see a slow killing, and so does the mob of spectators. That's good. Now here's my plan. We won't try to rescue them from the dungeons. Instead, we'll transpose back to the Zurb temple from the first level in considerable force, say a hundred or so men, and march on the palace to force their release. You're in constant radio communication with all the other temples on this timeline, I suppose. Yes, certainly. All right. Pass this out to everybody. Authority, paratime police in my name, acting for Torthakarv. I want all paratimers who can possibly be spared to transpose to first level immediately, and rendezvous at the first level terminal of the Zurb temple conveyor as soon as possible. Close down all mining operations and turn over temple routine to the native under-priests. You can tell them that the upper-priests are retiring to their respective houses of Yadzar to pray for the deliverance of the priests in the hands of King Kirchuk. And everybody is to bring back his priestly regalia to the first level. That will be needed. He turned to Brunad Klav. I suppose you keep spare regalia and stock on the first level? Yes, of course. We keep plenty of everything in stock. Robes, miters, false beards of different shades of everything. And these big Yadzar idols, they're mass produced on the first level. You have one available now? Good. I'll want some alterations made on one. For one thing, I'll want it plated heavily all over with collapsed nickel. For another, I'll want it fitted with anti-grab units and some sort of propulsion units and a loudspeaker and a remote control. And Stranor, you get in touch with this sword-maker, Cranard Jirth, and alert him to cooperate with us. Tell him to start calling Xerb Temple on his radio about noon to-morrow, and keep it up till he gets an answer. Or better, tell him to run his conveyor to his first level terminal and bring with him an extra suit of clothes appropriate to the role of journeyman mechanic. I'll want to talk to him and furnish him with special equipment. Got all that? Well, carry on with it and bring your own paratimers, priests, and mining operators back with you as soon as you've taken care of everything. Brannad, you come with me now. We're returning to first level immediately. We have a lot of work to do, so let's get started. Anything I can do to help, just call on me for it, Brannad Klav promised earnestly. And, Stranor, I want to apologize. I'll admit now that I ought to have followed your recommendations when this situation first developed. End of Part 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Mark Nelson. Temple Trouble by H. B. Piper. Part 2 By noon of the next day, Verkan Vall had at least a hundred men gathered in the big room at the first level fishnubles refinery at Jernabar, spatially co-existent with the fourth level temple of Yadzar at Zerb. He was having a little trouble distinguishing between them. For every man wore the fringed blue robe and gold mitre of an upper priest, and had his face masked behind a blue false beard. It was, he admitted to himself, a most ludicrous-looking assemblage. One of the most ludicrous things about it was the fact that it would have inspired only pious awe in a holgan of the fourth level proto-Aryan sector. About half of them were priests from the Trans-Temporal Mining Corporation's temples. The other half were members of the Paratime Police. All of them wore, in addition to their temple knives, holstered sigma-ray needleers. Most of them carried ultrasonic paralyzers, 18-inch baton-like things with bulbous ends. Most of the Paratime Police, and a few of the priests, also carried either heat-ray pistols or neutron disruption blasters. Verc and Vaughn wore one of the latter in a left-hand belt holster. The Paratime Police were lined up separately for inspection, and Stranor Sleith, Taman Drav of the Zurb Temple, and several other high priests were checking the authenticity of their disguises. Little apart from the others, a Paratime policeman, in high priest's robes and beard, had a square box slung in front of him. He was fiddling with the knobs and buttons on it, practicing. A big idol of Yat-Zar, on anti-gravity, was floating slowly about the room in obedience to its remote controls, rising and lowering, turning about and pirouetting gracefully. "'Hey, Val!' he called to his superior. "'How's this?' The idol rose about five feet, turned slowly in a half-circle, moved to the right a little, and then settled down slowly toward the floor. "'Fine, fine, Horov,' Verc and Vaughn told him. "'But don't set it down on anything, or turn off the anti-gravity. There's enough collapsed nickel-plating on that thing to sink at a yard in soft ground.' "'I don't know what the idea of that was,' Brenad Klav, standing beside him, said. "'Understand, I'm not criticizing. I haven't any right to under the circumstances. But it seems to me that armoring that thing and collapsed nickel was an unnecessary precaution.' "'Maybe it was,' Verc and Vaughn agreed. "'I sincerely hope so. But we can't take any chances. This operation has to be absolutely right.' "'Ready, Temond?' "'All right, first detail into the conveyor.' He turned and strode toward a big dome of fine metallic mesh. Thirty feet high and sixty in diameter. At the other end of the room.' "'Teman Drav and his ten paratimer priests and Brenad Klav and ten paratime police followed him in. One of the ladders slid shut the door and locked it. Verc and Vaughn went to the control desk at the center of the dome and picked up a two-foot globe of the same fine metallic mesh, opened it, and, making some adjustments inside, then attaching an electric cord and closing it. He laid the globe on the floor near the desk and picked up the hand battery at the other end of the attached cord. "'Not taking any chances at all, are you?' Brenad Klav asked, watching the operation with interest. "'I never do, unnecessarily. There are too many necessary chances that have to be taken in this work.' "'Verc and Vaughn pressed the button on the hand battery. The globe on the floor flashed and vanished. "'Yesterday five paratimers were arrested. Any or all of them could have had door activators with them. Stranor Sleth says that they were not tortured, but that is a purely inferential statement. They may have been, and the use of the activator may have been extorted from one of them. So I want to look at the inside of that conveyor chamber before we transpose into it.' He laid the hand battery with the loose dangling wire that had been left behind on the desk, then lit a cigarette. The others gathered around, smoking and watching, careful to avoid the place from which the globe had vanished. Thirty minutes passed, and then, in a queer iridescence, the globe reappeared. Verkan Vaughn counted ten seconds and picked it up, taking it to the desk and opening it to remove a small square box. Then he slid into a space under the desk and flipped a switch. Instantly a view-screen lit up and a three-dimensional picture appeared, the interior of a big room a hundred feet square and some seventy in height.  How about it, Verkan Vaughn asked him and Drav. Anything wrong? The Zurb High Priest shook his head. Just as we left it, he said, nobody's been inside since we left. One of the policemen took Verkan Vaughn's place at the control desk and threw the master switch after checking the instruments. Immediately the paratemporal transposition field went on with a humming sound that mounted to a high scream then settled to a steady drone. The mesh dome flickered with a cold iridescence and vanished. And they were looking into the interior of a great fissionables refinery plant, operated by paratimers on another first-level timeline. The structural details altered, from timeline to timeline, as they watched. Buildings appeared and vanished. Once, for a few seconds, they were inside a cool insulating bubble in the midst of molten lead. Tam and Drav jerked a thumb at it before it vanished. "'That always bothers me,' he said. Bad place for the field to go weak. I'm fussy as an old hen about inspection of the conveyor on account of that.' "'Don't blame you,' Verkan Vaughn agreed. Probably the cooling system of a breeder-pile. They passed more swiftly now across the second level and the third. Once they were in the midst of a huge land battle, with great tank-like vehicles spouting flame at one another. Another moment was spent in an air-bombardment. On any timeline this section of East Europe was a natural battle-ground. Once a great procession marched toward them, carrying red banners and huge pictures of a coarse-faced man with a black mustache, Verkan Vaughn recognized the environment as fourth-level Europa-American sector. Finally, as the transposition rate slowed, they saw a clutter of miserable, thatched huts, in the rear of a granite wall of a fourth-level Hulgun Temple of Yatzar, a temple not yet infiltrated by trans-temporal mining-corporation agents. Finally they were at their destination.  Verkan Vaughn opened the door and stepped outside, his needler drawn. The house of Yatzar was just as he had seen it in the picture photographed by the Automatic Reconnaissance Conveyor. The others crowded outside after him. One of the regular priests pulled off his miter and beard and went to the radio, putting on a headset. Verkan Vaughn and Teman Drav snapped on the visus-screen, getting a view of the holy of holies outside. There were six men there, seated at the Upper Priest's banquet table, drinking from golden goblets. Five of them wore the black robes with green facings which marked them as priests of Muz Azin. The sixth was an officer of the Chaldan archers, in gilded mail and helmet. Why, those are the sacred vessels of the temple! Teman Drav cried, scandalized. Then he laughed in self-ridicule. I'm beginning to take this stuff seriously myself. Time I put in for a long vacation. I was actually shocked at the sacrilege. Well, let's overtake the infidels in their sins, Verkan Vaughn said. Paralyzers will be good enough. He picked up one of the bulb-headed weapons and unlocked the door. Teman Drav and another of the priests of the Zurb temple following and the others crowding behind. They passed out through the veils and burst into the holy of holies. Verkan Vaughn pointed the bulb of his paralyzer at the six seated men and pressed the button. Other paralyzers came into action and the whole sex-debt were knocked senseless. The officer rolled from his chair and fell to the floor in a clatter of armor. Two of the priests slumped forward on the table. The others merely sang back in their chairs, dropping their goblets. Give each one of them another dose to make sure Verkan Vaughn directed a couple of his own men. Now, Teman, any other way into the main temple beside that door? Up those steps, Teman Drav pointed, there's a gallery along the side. 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 of them loosing any arrows before we can knock them out. Three minutes be time enough? Easily. Make it too, Teman Drav said. He took his priests up the stairway and vanished into the gallery of the temple. Verkan Vaughn waited until one minute had passed, and then, followed by Brannad Klav and a couple of paratime policemen, he went under 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 the fire. Most of the others, like veteran soldiers, were sprawled on the floor, trying to catch a short nap, except a half dozen who were crouched in a circle, playing some game with dice, an almost universal military practice. The two minutes were up. He aimed his paralyzer at the men around the altar and squeezed the button, swinging it from one to another and knocking them down with a bludgeon of inaudible sound. At the same time, Teman Drav and his detail were stunning the gamblers. Stepping forward and to one side, Verkan Vaughn, Brannad Klav and the others took care of the sleepers on the floor. In less than thirty seconds every chuldon in the temple was incapacitated. All right, make sure none of them come out of it prematurely, Verkan Vaughn directed. Get their weapons and be sure nobody has a knife or anything hidden on him. Who has the syringe and the sleep-drug ampules? Somebody had, it developed, who was still on the first level, to come up with the second conveyor-load. Verkan Vaughn swore. Something like this always happened on any operation involving more than a half dozen men.  Ultrasonics were nice, effective, humane police weapons, but they were unreliable. The same dose that would keep one man out for an hour would paralyze another for more than ten or fifteen minutes. And be sure none of them are playing possum. He went back through the door under the plinth, glancing up at the decorated wooden screen and wondering how much work it would take to move the new Yatzar in from the conveyors. The five priests and the archer-captain were still unconscious. One of the policemen was searching them. Here's the sort of weapons these priests carry, he said, holding up a short iron mace with a spiked head. Carried them on their belts. He tossed it on the table and began searching another knocked-out herofront. Like this, hey, look at this, will you! He drew his hand from under the left side of the senseless man's robe and held up a sigma-ray needler. Verkan Vall looked at it and nodded grimly. Had it in a regular shoulder holster, the policeman said, handing the weapon across the table. What do you think? Find anything else funny on him? Wait a minute. The policeman pulled open the robe and began stripping the priest of Mazazine. Verkan Vall came around the table to help. There was nothing else of a suspicious nature. You'd have got it from one of the prisoners, but I don't like the familiar way he's wearing that holster, Verkan Vall said. Has the conveyor gone back yet? When the policeman nodded, he continued. When it returns, take him to the first level. I hope they bring up the sleep-drug with the next load. When you get him back, take him to Durgabar by straddle-rocket immediately and make sure he gets back alive. I want him questioned under narcohypnosis, by a regular paratime-commission psychotechnician, in the presence of Chief Torthakarf and some responsible commission official. This is going to be hot stuff. Within an hour the whole force was assembled in the temple. The wooden screen had presented no problem. It slid easily to one side. The big idol floated on anti-gravity in the middle of the temple. Verkan Vall was looking anxiously at his watch. It's about two hours to sunset, he said to Stranor Sleith. But as you pointed out, these hulgans aren't astronomers, and it's a bit cloudy. I wish Cranard Jirth would call in with something definite. About twenty minutes passed. Then the man at the radio came out into the temple. Okay, he called. The man at Cranard Jirth's called in. Cranard Jirth contacted him with a midget radio he has up his sleeve. He's in the palace courtyard now. They haven't brought out the victims yet, but Kerchuk has just been carried out on his throne to that platform in the front of the citadel. Big crowd gathering on 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 Tammond and Stranor and I in front. About ten men with paralyzers a little behind us. Then, Yadzar, about ten feet off the ground, and then the others. Forward, ho! They emerged from the temple and started down the broad roadway toward the palace. There was not much of a crowd at first. Most of Zerb had flocked to the palace earlier. The lucky ones in the courtyard and the late comers outside. Those whom they did meet stared at them in open-mouthed amazement. And then some, remembering their doubts and blasphemies, began howling for forgiveness. Others, a substantial majority, realizing that it would be upon King Kerchuk that the real weight of Yadzar's six hands would fall, took to their heels, trying to put as much distance as possible between them and the palace before the blow fell. As the procession approached the palace gates, the crowds grew thicker, made up of those who had been unable to squeeze themselves inside. The panic was worse here, too. A good many were trampled and hurt in the rush to escape, and it became necessary to use paralyzers to clear away. That made it worse. Everybody was sure that Yadzar was striking sinners dead left and right. Fortunately, the gates were high enough to let the god through without losing altitude appreciably. Inside the mob surged back, clearing away across the courtyard. It was only necessary to paralyze a few here, and the levitated idol and its priestly attendants advanced toward the stone platform where the king sat on his throne, flanked by court functionaries and black robe priests of Mazazine. In front of this, a rank of cheldon archers had been drawn up. Horf, move Yadzar forward about a hundred feet and up about fifty, Verkanvall directed, quickly. As the six-armed anthropomorphic idol rose and moved closer toward its Sarian rival, Verkanvall drew his needler, scanning the assemblage around the throne anxiously. Where is the wicked king? A voice thundered. The voice of Stranor Sleth, speaking into a midget radio tune to the loudspeaker inside the idol. Where is the blasphemer and desecrator Karchuk? There's Labdurg in the red tunic beside the throne, Temondrav whispered, and that's Gramdur, the Mazazine high priest beside him. Verkanvall nodded, keeping his eyes on the group on the platform. Gramdur, the high priest of Mazazine, was edging backward and reaching under his robe. At the same time an officer shouted an order and the cheldon archers drew arrows from their quivers and fitted them to their bow-strings. Immediately the ultrasonic paralyzers of the advancing paratimers went into action and the mercenaries began dropping. Lay down your weapons, fools! the amplified voice boomed at them.  Who are you miserable wretches to draw bows against me? At first a few, then all of them, the cheldons lowered or dropped their weapons and began edging away to the sides. At the center in front of the throne most of them had been knocked out. Verkanvall was still watching the Mazazine high priest intently. As Gramdur raised his arms there was a flash and a puff of smoke from the front of Yatzar. The paint over the collapsed nickel was burned off but otherwise the idol was undamaged. Verkanvall swung up his needler and raided Gramdur dead. As the man in the green-faced black robes fell a blaster clattered on the stone platform. Is that your puny best Mazazine? the booming voice demanded. Where is your high priest now? Horf, face Yatzar toward Mazazine, Verkanvall said over his shoulder, drawing his blaster with his left hand. Like all first level people he was ambidextrous, although like all paratimers he habitually concealed the fact while out time. As the levitated idol swung slowly to look down upon its enemy on the built-up cart, Verkanvall aimed his blaster and squeezed. In a spot less than a millimetre in diameter on the crocodile idol's side a certain number of neutrons in the atomic structure of the stone from which it was carved broke apart, becoming in effect atoms of hydrogen. With a flash and a bang the idol burst and vanished. Yatzar gave a dirty laugh and turned his back on the cart, which was now burning fiercely, facing King Kirchuk again. Get your hands up, all of you, Verkanvall shouted, in the first level language, swinging the stubby muzzle of the blaster and the knob-tipped twin tubes of the needler to cover the group around the throne. Come forward before I start blasting. Labdurg raised his hands and stepped forward. So did two of the priests of Yatzar. They were quickly seized by paratime policemen who swarmed up onto the platform and disarmed. All three were carrying sigma-ray needlers, and Labdurg had a blaster as well. King Kirchuk was clinging to the arms of his throne, a badly frightened monarch trying desperately not to show it.  Now his face was a dirty gray, and he was biting nervously at his lower lip. The others on the platform were in even worse state. The Hogan nobles were grouped together, trying to dissociate themselves from both the king and the priests of Mazazine. The latter were staring in a daze at the blazing cart from which their idol had just been blasted, and the dozen men who were to have done the actual work of the torture's sacrifice had all dropped their whips and were fairly gibbering in fear. Yatzar, manipulated by the robed paratimer, had taken a position directly above the throne and was lowering slowly. Kirchuk stared up at the massive idol descending toward him, his knuckles white as he clung to the arms of his throne. He managed to hold out until he could feel the weight of the idol pressing on his head. Then, with a screen, he hurled himself from the throne and rolled forward almost to the edge of the platform. Yatzar moved to one side, swung slightly, and knocked the throne toppling, and then settled down on the platform. Through Kirchuk, who was rising cautiously on his hands and knees, the big idols seemed to be looking at him in contempt. Where are my holy priests, Kirchuk? Strahner's death demanded into a sleeve hidden radio. Let them be brought before me, alive and unharmed, or it shall be better for you had you never been born. The six priests of Yatzar, it seemed, were already being brought onto the platform by one of Kirchuk's nobles. This noble, whose name was Yorzak, knew a miracle when he saw one and believed in being on the side of a god with the heaviest artillery. As soon as he had seen Yatzar coming through the gate without visible means of support, he had hastened to the dungeons with a half a dozen of his personal retainers and ordered the release of the six captives. He was now escorting them onto the platform, assuring them that he had always been a faithful servant of Yatzar and had been deeply grieved at his sovereign's apostasy. Here my word, Kirchuk, Strahner's sleth continued through the loud speaker in the idol, You have sinned most vilely against me, and were I a cruel god, your fate would be such as no man has ever before suffered. But I am a merciful god. Behold, you may gain forgiveness in my sight. For thirty days you shall neither eat meat nor drink wine, nor shall you wear gold nor fine raiment, and each day shall you go to my temple and beseech me for my forgiveness. And on the thirty-first day you shall set out barefoot and clad in the garb of a slave and journey to my temple that is in the mountains over above Yodav, and there will I forgive you, after you have made sacrifice to me. I, Yatzar, have spoken. The king started to rise, babbling thanks. Rise not before me until I have forgiven you, Yatzar thundered. Creep out of my sight upon your belly, wretch! The procession back to the temple was made quietly and sedately along an empty roadway. Yatzar seemed to be in a kindly humor. The people of Zerb had no intention of giving him any reason to change his mood. The priests of Mazazin and their torturers had been flung into the dungeon. Yorzak, appointed regent for the duration of Kirchak's penance, had taken control and was employing Hulgun Spearman and hastily converted Chulgun archers to restore order and, incidentally, purge a few of his personal enemies and political rivals. The priests, with the three prisoners who had been found carrying first-level weapons among them, and Yatzar, floating triumphantly in front, entered the temple. A few of the devout, who sought admission after them, were told that elaborate and secret rites were being held to cleanse the profane altar and sent away. Verkanval and Brannad Klav and Stranar Sleth were in the conveyor chamber, with the paratime policemen and the extra priests. Along with them were the three prisoners.  He could see that they all recognized him.  You violated the paratime transposition code, the commercial regulation code, and the first-level criminal code, all together. If you know what's good for you, you'll start talking. I'm not saying anything till I have legal advice, the man who had been using the local alias of Labdurg replied, and if you're through searching me, I'd like to have my cigarettes and lighter back. Smoke one of mine for a change, Verkanval told him. I don't know what's in yours besides tobacco. He offered his case and held a light for the prisoner before lighting his own cigarette. I'm going to be sure you get back to first-level alive. The former overseer of the Kingdom of Zerb shrugged. I'm still not talking, he said.  Besides, we got that man of yours who was here at the temple when we came in. He's being given a full treatment, as a presumed out-time native found in possession of first-level weapons. If you talk now, it'll go easier with you. The prisoner dropped the cigarette on the floor and tramped it out. Anything you cops get out of me, you'll have to get the hard way, he said. I have friends on the first level who'll take care of me. I doubt that they'll have their hands full taken care of themselves after this gets out. Verkanval turned to the two in the black robes. Either of you want to say anything? When they shook their heads, he nodded to a group of his policemen. They were hustled into the conveyor. Take them to the first-level terminal and hold them till I come in. I'll be along with the next conveyor load. The conveyor flashed and vanished. Brunad Klav stared for a moment at the circle of concrete floor from whence it had disappeared. Then he turned to Verkanval. I still can't believe it, he said. Why those fellows were first-level paratimers. So was that priest, Gromdur, the one you raid. Yes, of course. They worked for your rivals, the fourth-level mineral products syndicate, the outfit that was trying to get your proto-Aryan sector-fissionables franchise away from you. They operate on this sector already, have the petroleum franchise for the Cheldon country east of the Caspian Sea. They export to some of these internal combustion engine sectors, like Europoamerican. You know, most of the wars they've been fighting lately on the Europoamerican sector have been, at least in part, motivated by rivalry for oil fields. But now that the Europoamericans have begun to release nuclear energy, fishnables have become more important than oil. In less than a century, it's predicted that atomic energy will replace all other forms of power. Mineral products syndicate wanted to get a good source of supply for uranium, and your proto-Aryan sector franchise was worth grabbing. I had considered something like this as a possibility when Strannar here mentioned that tularemia was normally unknown in Eurasia on this sector. That epidemic must have been started by imported germs. And I knew that mineral products has agents at the court of the Cheldon Emperor, Chombrog. They have to, to protect their oil wells on his eastern frontiers. I spent most of last night checking up on some stuff by video transcription from Paratime Commission's microfilm library at Durgabar. I found out, for one thing, that while there is a kinkerchuk of Zurb on every timeline for a hundred parayers on either side of this one, this is the only timeline in which he married a Princess Derrith of Cheldon. And it's the only timeline in which there is any trace of a Cheldon scribe named Labdurg. That's why I went to all the trouble of having that Yatzar plated with collapsed nickel. If there were disguised paratimers among the Muzzazine Party at Kerchuk's court, I expected one of them to try to blast our idol when we brought it into the palace. I was watching Gromdur and Labdurg in particular. As soon as Gromdur used his blaster, I needled him. After that, it was easy. Was that why you insisted on sending that automatic viewer on ahead? Yes. There was a chance that they might have planted a bomb in the house of Yatzar here. I knew they'd either do that or let the place entirely alone. I suppose they were so confident of getting away with this that they didn't want to damage the conveyor or the conveyor chamber. They expected to use them, themselves, after they took over your company's franchise. Well, what's going to be done about it by the commission, Brannad Klav wanted to know. Plenty. The syndicate will probably lose their paratime license. Any of its officials who had guilty knowledge of this will be dealt with according to law. You know this was a pretty nasty business. You are telling me, Stranosleth exclaimed. Did you get a look at those whips they were going to use on our people? Pointed iron barbs a quarter-inch long braided into them all over the lash ends. Yes. Any punitive action you are thinking about taking on these priests of Muzzazine, the natives, I mean, will be ignored on the first level. And that reminds me, you'd better work out a line of policy pretty soon. Well, as for the priests and the torturers, I think I'll tell Yorzak to have them sold to the Bungans, to the East. They are always in the market for galley slaves, Stranosleth said. He turned to Brannad Klav. And I want six gold crowns made up as soon as possible. Strictly Hulgan design, with Yatzar religious symbolism, very rich and ornate, all slightly different. When I give Kirtchuk absolution, I'll crown him at the altar in the name of Yatzar. Then I'll invite in the other five Hulgan kings, lecture them on their religious duties, and make them confess their secret doubts, forgive them, and crown them too. From then on they can all style themselves as ruling by the will of Yatzar. And from then on you'll have all of them eating out of your hand, Fuerkenvall concluded. You know, this will probably go down in Hulgan history as the Reformation of Gullum the Holy. I've always wondered whether the theory of the divine right of kings was invented by the kings to establish their authority over the people or by the priests to establish their authority over the kings. It works about as well one way as the other. What I can't understand is this, Brannad Klav said. It was entirely because of my respect for the paratime code that I kept Stranosleth from using fourth-level weapons and other techniques to control these people with a show of apparent miraculous powers. But this fourth-level mineral product syndicate was operating in violation of the paratime code by invading our franchise area. Why didn't they fake up a supernatural reign of terror to intimidate these natives? Ha! Exactly because they WERE operating illegally, Verkenvall replied. Suppose they had started using needlers and blasters and anti-gravity and nuclear energy around here. The natives would have thought it was the power of Muzzazine, of course, but what would have you thought? You'd have known as soon as they tried it that first-level paratimers were working against you, and you'd have laid the facts before the commission, and this timeline would have been flooded with paratime police. They had to conceal their operations not only from the natives, as you do, but also from us. So they didn't dare make public their use of first-level techniques. Of course, when we came marching into the palace with that idol on anti-gravity, they knew at once what was happening. I have an idea that they only tried to blast that idol to create a diversion which would permit them to escape. If they could get out of the palace, they'd have made their way in disguise to the nearest mineral product syndicate conveyor and transposed out of here. I realize that they could best delay us by blasting our idol, and that's why I had it plated with Collapsed Nickel. I think that where they made their mistake was in allowing Kirchuk to have those priests arrested, and insisting on sacrificing them to Muzzazine. If it hadn't been for that, the paratime police wouldn't have been brought into this at all. Well, Stranner, you'll want to get back to your temple, and Brannet and I want to get back to the first-level. I'm supposed to take my wife to a banquet in Durgabar tonight, and with the fastest strato rocket, I'll just barely make it.