Transcriber's Note:

 This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction, April, 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed. 

 [Illustration]

 TEMPLE TROUBLE

 BY H. BEAM PIPER

 * * * * *

 Miracles to order was a fine way for the paratimers to get mining concessions--but Nature can sometimes pull counter-miracles. And so can men, for that matter. .. . 

 Illustrated by Rogers

Through a haze of incense and altar smoke, Yat-Zar looked down fromhis golden throne at the end of the dusky, many-pillared temple. Yat-Zar was an idol, of gigantic size and extraordinarily goodworkmanship; he had three eyes, made of turquoises as big asdoorknobs, and six arms. In his three right hands, from top to bottom, he held a sword with a flame-shaped blade, a jeweled object of vaguelyphallic appearance, and, by the ears, a rabbit. In his left hands werea bronze torch with burnished copper flames, a big goblet, and a pairof scales with an egg in one pan balanced against a skull in theother. He had a long bifurcate beard made of gold wire, feet like abird's, and other rather startling anatomical features. His throne wasset upon a stone plinth about twenty feet high, into the front ofwhich a doorway opened; behind him was a wooden screen, elaboratelygilded and painted. 

Directly in front of the idol, Ghullam the high priest knelt on a bigblue and gold cushion. He wore a gold-fringed robe of dark blue, and atall conical gold miter, and a bright blue false beard, forked likethe idol's golden one: he was intoning a prayer, and holding up, inboth hands, for divine inspection and approval, a long curved knife. Behind him, about thirty feel away, stood a square stone altar, aroundwhich four of the lesser priests, in light blue robes with less goldfringe and dark-blue false beards, were busy with the preliminaries tothe sacrifice. At considerable distance, about halfway down the lengthof the temple, some two hundred worshipers--a few substantial citizensin gold-fringed tunics, artisans in tunics without gold fringe, soldiers in mail hauberks and plain steel caps, one officer inornately gilded armor, a number of peasants in nondescript smocks, andwomen of all classes--were beginning to prostrate themselves on thestone floor. 

Ghullam rose to his feet, bowing deeply to Yat-Zar and holding theknife extended in front of him, and backed away toward the altar. Ashe did, one of the lesser priests reached into a fringed andembroidered sack and pulled out a live rabbit, a big one, obviously ofdomestic breed, holding it by the ears while one of his fellows tookit by the hind legs. A third priest caught up a silver pitcher, whilethe fourth fanned the altar fire with a sheet-silver fan. As theybegan chanting antiphonally, Ghullam turned and quickly whipped theedge of his knife across the rabbit's throat. The priest with thepitcher stepped in to catch the blood, and when the rabbit was bled, it was laid on the fire. Ghullam and his four assistants all shoutedtogether, and the congregation shouted in response. 

The high priest waited as long as was decently necessary and then, holding the knife in front of him, stepped around the prayer-cushionand went through the door under the idol into the Holy of Holies. Aboy in novice's white robes met him and took the knife, carrying itreverently to a fountain for washing. Eight or ten under-priests, sitting at a long table, rose and bowed, then sat down again andresumed their eating and drinking. At another table, a half-dozenupper priests nodded to him in casual greeting. 

Crossing the room, Ghullam went to the Triple Veil in front of theHouse of Yat-Zar, where only the highest of the priesthood might go, and parted the curtains, passing through, until he came to the greatgilded door. Here he fumbled under his robe and produced a smallobject like a mechanical pencil, inserting the pointed end in a tinyhole in the door and pressing on the other end. The door opened, thenswung shut behind him, and as it locked itself, the lights came onwithin. Ghullam removed his miter and his false beard, tossing themaside on a table, then undid his sash and peeled out of his robe. Hisregalia discarded, he stood for a moment in loose trousers and a softwhite shirt, with a pistollike weapon in a shoulder holster under hisleft arm--no longer Ghullam the high priest of Yat-Zar, but nowStranor Sleth, resident agent on this time-line of the Fourth LevelProto-Aryan Sector for the Transtemporal Mining Corporation. Then heopened a door at the other side of the anteroom and went to theantigrav shaft, stepping over the edge and floating downward. 

 * * * * *

There were temples of Yat-Zar on every time-line of the Proto-AryanSector, for the worship of Yat-Zar was ancient among the Hulgun peopleof that area of paratime, but there were only a few which had suchinstallations as this, and all of them were owned and operated byTranstemporal Mining, which had the fissionable ores franchise forthis sector. During the ten elapsed centuries since Transtemporal hadbegun operations on this sector, the process had become standardized. A few First Level paratimers would transpose to a selected time-lineand abduct an upper-priest of Yat-Zar, preferably the high priest ofthe temple at Yoldav or Zurb. He would be drugged and transposed tothe First Level, where he would receive hypnotic indoctrination and, while unconscious, have an operation performed on his ears which wouldenable him to hear sounds well above the normal audible range. Hewould be able to hear the shrill sonar-cries of bats, for instance, and, more important, he would be able to hear voices when the speakerused a First Level audio-frequency step-up phone. He would alsoreceive a memory-obliteration from the moment of his abduction, and aset of pseudo-memories of a visit to the Heaven of Yat-Zar, on theother side of the sky. Then he would be returned to his own time-lineand left on a mountain top far from his temple, where an unknownpeasant, leading a donkey, would always find him, return him to thetemple, and then vanish inexplicably. 

Then the priest would begin hearing voices, usually while serving atthe altar. They would warn of future events, which would always cometo pass exactly as foretold. Or they might bring tidings of thingshappening at a distance, the news of which would not arrive by normalmeans for days or even weeks. Before long, the holy man who had beencarried alive to the Heaven of Yat-Zar would acquire a most awesomereputation as a prophet, and would speedily rise to the very top ofthe priestly hierarchy. 

Then he would receive two commandments from Yat-Zar. The first wouldordain that all lower priests must travel about from temple to temple, never staying longer than a year at any one place. This would insure asteady influx of newcomers personally unknown to the localupper-priests, and many of them would be First Level paratimers. Then, there would be a second commandment: A house must be built forYat-Zar, against the rear wall of each temple. Its dimensions wereminutely stipulated; its walls were to be of stone, without windows, and there was to be a single door, opening into the Holy of Holies, and before the walls were finished, the door was to be barred fromwithin. A triple veil of brocaded fabric was to be hung in front ofthis door. Sometimes such innovations met with opposition from themore conservative members of the hierarchy: when they did, theprincipal objector would be seized with a sudden and violent illness;he would recover if and when he withdrew his objections. 

Very shortly after the House of Yat-Zar would be completed, strangenoises would be heard from behind the thick walls. Then, after awhile, one of the younger priests would announce that he had beencommanded in a vision to go behind the veil and knock upon the door. Going behind the curtains, he would use his door-activator to lethimself in, and return by paratime-conveyer to the First Level toenjoy a well-earned vacation. When the high priest would follow himbehind the veil, after a few hours, and find that he had vanished, itwould be announced as a miracle. A week later, an even greater miraclewould be announced. The young priest would return from behind theTriple Veil, clad in such raiment as no man had ever seen, and bearingin his hands a strange box. He would announce that Yat-Zar hadcommanded him to build a new temple in the mountains, at a place to bemade known by the voice of the god speaking out of the box. 

This time, there would be no doubts and no objections. A processionwould set out, headed by the new revelator bearing the box, and whenthe clicking voice of the god spoke rapidly out of it, the site wouldbe marked and work would begin. No local labor would ever be employedon such temples; the masons and woodworkers would be strangers, comefrom afar and speaking a strange tongue, and when the temple wascompleted, they would never be seen to leave it. Men would say thatthey had been put to death by the priest and buried under the altar topreserve the secrets of the god. And there would always be an idol topreserve the secrets of the god. And there would always be an idol ofYat-Zar, obviously of heavenly origin, since its workmanship wasbeyond the powers of any local craftsman. The priests of such a templewould be exempt, by divine decree, from the rule of yearly travel. 

Nobody, of course, would have the least idea that there was a uraniummine in operation under it, shipping ore to another time-line. TheHulgun people knew nothing about uranium, and neither did they as muchas dream that there were other time-lines. The secret of paratimetransposition belonged exclusively to the First Level civilizationwhich had discovered it, and it was a secret that was guarded well. 

 * * * * *

Stranor Sleth, dropping to the bottom of the antigrav shaft, cast ahasty and instinctive glance to the right, where the freight conveyerswere. One was gone, taking its cargo over hundreds of thousands ofpara-years to the First Level. Another had just returned, empty, and athird was receiving its cargo from the robot mining machines far backunder the mountain. Two young men and a girl, in First Level costumes, sat at a bank of instruments and visor-screens, handling the wholeoperation, and six or seven armed guards, having inspected thenewly-arrived conveyer and finding that it had picked up nothinginimical en route, were relaxing and lighting cigarettes. Three ofthem, Stranor Sleth noticed, wore the green uniforms of the ParatimePolice. 

"When did those fellows get in?" he asked the people at the controldesk, nodding toward the green-clad newcomers. 

"About ten minutes ago, on the passenger conveyer, " the girl told him. "The Big Boy's here. Brannad Klav. And a Paratime Police officer. They're in your office. "

"Uh huh; I was expecting that, " Stranor Sleth nodded. Then he turneddown the corridor to the left. 

Two men were waiting for him, in his office. One was short and stocky, with an angry, impatient face--Brannad Klav, Transtemporal's vicepresident in charge of operations. The other was tall and slender withhandsome and entirely expressionless features; he wore a ParatimePolice officer's uniform, with the blue badge of hereditary nobilityon his breast, and carried a sigma-ray needler in a belt holster. 

"Were you waiting long, gentlemen?" Stranor Sleth asked. "I washolding Sunset Sacrifice up in the temple. "

"No, we just got here, " Brannad Klav said. "This is Verkan Vall, Mavrad of Nerros, special assistant to Chief Tortha of the ParatimePolice, Stranor Sleth, our resident agent here. "

Stranor Sleth touched hands with Verkan Vall. 

"I've heard a lot about you, sir, " he said. "Everybody working inparatime has, of course. I'm sorry we have a situation here that callsfor 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 Vall replied. "Chief Tortha, and BrannadKlav, have given me the main outline, but I'd like to have you fill inthe details. "

"Well, I told you everything, " Brannad Klav interrupted impatiently. "It's just that Stranor's let this blasted local king, Kurchuk, getout of control. If I--" He stopped short, catching sight of theshoulder holster under Stranor Sleth's left arm. "Were you wearingthat needler up in the temple?" he demanded. 

"You're blasted right I was!" Stranor Sleth retorted. "And any time Ican't arm myself for my own protection on this time-line, you can havemy resignation. I'm not getting into the same jam as those people atZurb. "

"Well, never mind about that, " Verkan Vall intervened. "Of courseStranor Sleth has a right to arm himself; I wouldn't think of beingcaught without a weapon on this time-line, myself. Now, Stranor, suppose you tell me what's been happening, here, from the beginning ofthis trouble. "

"It started, really, about five years ago, when Kurchuk, the King ofZurb, married this Chuldun princess, Darith, from the country overbeyond the Black Sea, and made her his queen, over the heads of abouta dozen daughters of the local nobility, whom he'd married previously. Then he brought in this Chuldun scribe, Labdurg, and made him Overseerof the Kingdom--roughly, prime minister. There was a lot ofdissatisfaction about that, and for a while it looked as though he wasgoing to have a revolution on his hands, but he brought in about fivethousand Chuldun mercenaries, all archers--these Hulguns can't shoot abow worth beans--so the dissatisfaction died down, and so did most ofthe leaders of the disaffected group. The story I get is that thisLabdurg arranged the marriage, in the first place. It looks to me asthough the Chuldun emperor is intending to take over the Hulgunkingdoms, starting with Zurb. 

[Illustration:]

"Well, these Chulduns all worship a god called Muz-Azin. Muz-Azin is acrocodile with wings like a bat and a lot of knife blades in his tail. He makes this Yat-Zar look downright beautiful. So do his habits. Muz-Azin fancies human sacrifices. The victims are strung up by theankles on a triangular frame and lashed to death with iron-barbedwhips. Nasty sort of a deity, but this is a nasty time-line. Thepeople here get a big kick out of watching these sacrifices. Muchbetter show than our bunny-killing. The victims are usually criminals, or overage or incorrigible slaves, or prisoners of war. 

"Of course, when the Chulduns began infiltrating the palace, theybrought in their crocodile-god, too, and a flock of priests, and KingKurchuk let them set up a temple in the palace. Naturally, we preachedagainst this heathen idolatry in our temples, but religious bigotryisn't one of the numerous imperfections of this sector. Everybody'sdeity is as good as anybody else's--indifferentism, I believe, is thetheological term. Anyhow, on that basis things went along fairly well, till two years ago, when we had this run of bad luck. "

"Bad luck!" Brannad Klav snorted. "That's the standing excuse of everyincompetent!"

"Go on, Stranor; what sort of bad luck?" Verkan Vall asked. 

"Well, first we had a drought, beginning in early summer, that burnedup most of the grain crop. Then, when that broke, we got heavy rainsand hailstorms and floods, and that destroyed what got through the dryspell. When they harvested what little was left, it was obviousthere'd be a famine, so we brought in a lot of grain by conveyer anddistributed it from the temples--miraculous gift of Yat-Zar, ofcourse. Then the main office on First Level got scared about floodingthis time-line with a lot of unaccountable grain and were afraid we'dmake the people suspicious, and ordered it stopped. 

"Then Kurchuk, and I might add that the kingdom of Zurb was thehardest hit by the famine, ordered his army mobilized and started aninvasion of the Jumdun country, south of the Carpathians, to getgrain. He got his army chopped up, and only about a quarter of themgot back, with no grain. You ask me, I'd say that Labdurg framed it tohappen that way. He advised Kurchuk to invade, in the first place, andI mentioned my suspicion that Chombrog, the Chuldun Emperor, isplanning to move in on the Hulgun kingdoms. Well, what would besmarter than to get Kurchuk's army smashed in advance?"

"How did the defeat occur?" Verkan Vall asked. "Any suspicion oftreachery?"

"Nothing you could put your finger on, except that the Jumduns seemedto have pretty good intelligence about Kurchuk's invasion route andbattle plans. It could have been nothing worse than stupid tactics onKurchuk's part. See, these Hulguns, and particularly the ZurbHulguns, are spearmen. They fight in a fairly thin line, withheavy-armed infantry in front and light infantry with throwing-spearsbehind. The nobles fight in light chariots, usually at the center ofthe line, and that's where they were at this Battle of Jorm. Kurchukhimself was at the center, with his Chuldun archers massed around him. 

"The Jumduns use a lot of cavalry, with long swords and lances, and alot of big chariots with two javelin men and a driver. Well, insteadof ramming into Kurchuk's center, where he had his archers, they hitthe extreme left and folded it up, and then swung around behind andhit the right from the rear. All the Chuldun archers did was standfast around the king and shoot anybody who came close to them: theywere left pretty much alone. But the Hulgun spearmen were cut topieces. The battle ended with Kurchuk and his nobles and his archersmaking a fighting retreat, while the Jumdun cavalry were chasing thespearmen every which way and cutting them down or lancing them as theyran. 

"Well, whether it was Labdurg's treachery or Kurchuk's stupidity, ineither case, it was natural for the archers to come off easiest andthe Hulgun spearmen to pay the butcher's bill. But try and tell theseknuckle-heads anything like that! Muz-Azin protected the Chulduns, andYat-Zar let the Hulguns down, and that was all there was to it. TheZurb temple started losing worshipers, particularly the families ofthe men who didn't make it back from Jorm. 

"If that had been all there'd been to it, though, it still wouldn'thave hurt the mining operations, and we could have got by. But whatreally tore it was when the rabbits started to die. " Stranor Slethpicked up a cigar from his desk and bit the end, spitting it outdisgustedly. "Tularemia, of course, " he said, touching his lighter tothe tip. "When that hit, they started going over to Muz-Azin indroves, not only at Zurb but all over the Six Kingdoms. You ought tohave seen the house we had for Sunset Sacrifice, this evening! Abouttwo hundred, and we used to get two thousand. It used to be all twomen could do to lift the offering box at the door, afterward, and allthe money we took in tonight I could put in one pocket!" The highpriest used language that would have been considered unclerical evenamong the Hulguns. 

Verkan Vall nodded. Even without the quickie hypno-mech he had takenfor this sector, he knew that the rabbit was domesticated among theProto-Aryan Hulguns and was their chief meat animal. Hulgun rabbitswere even a minor import on the First Level, and could be had at allthe better restaurants in cities like Dhergabar. He mentioned that. 

"That's not the worst of it, " Stranor Sleth told him. "See, therabbit's sacred to Yat-Zar. Not taboo; just sacred. They have to usea specially consecrated knife to kill them--consecrating rabbit kniveshas always been an item of temple revenue--and they must say a specialprayer before eating them. We could have got around the rest of it, even the Battle of Jorm--punishment by Yat-Zar for the sin ofapostasy--but Yat-Zar just wouldn't make rabbits sick. Yat-Zar thinkstoo well of rabbits to do that, and it'd not been any use claiming hewould. So there you are. "

"Well, I take the attitude that this situation is the result of yourincompetence, " Brannad Klav began, in a bullyragging tone. "You're notonly the high priest of this temple, you're the acknowledged head ofthe religion in all the Hulgun kingdoms. You should have had more holdon the people than to allow anything like this to happen. "

"Hold on the people!" Stranor Sleth fairly howled, appealing to VerkanVall. "What does he think a religion is, on this sector, anyhow? Youthink these savages dreamed up that six-armed monstrosity, up there, to express their yearning for higher things, or to symbolize theirmoral ethos, or as a philosophical escape-hatch from the dilemma ofcausation? They never even heard of such matters. On this sector, godsare strictly utilitarian. As long as they take care of theirworshipers, they get their sacrifices: when they can't put out, theyhave to get out. How do you suppose these Chulduns, living in theCaucasus Mountains, got the idea of a god like a crocodile, anyhow?Why, they got it from Homran traders, people from down in the NileValley. 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, becausethey're combinations of several deities, worshiped in one person. Doyou know anything about the history of this sector?" he asked theParatime Police officer. 

"Well, it develops from an alternate probability of what we call theNilo-Mesopotamian Basic sector-group, " Verkan Vall said. "On mostNilo-Mesopotamian sectors, like the Macedonian Empire Sector, or theAlexandrian-Roman or Alexandrian-Punic or Indo-Turanian orEuropo-American, there was an Aryan invasion of Eastern Europe andAsia Minor about four thousand elapsed years ago. On this sector, theancestors of the Aryans came in about fifteen centuries earlier, asneolithic savages, about the time that the Sumerian and Egyptiancivilizations were first developing, and overran all southeast Europe, Asia Minor and the Nile Valley. They developed to the bronze-ageculture of the civilizations they overthrew, and then, more slowly, toan iron-age culture. About two thousand years ago, they were usinghardened steel and building large stone cities, just as they do now. At that time, they reached cultural stasis. But as for their religiousbeliefs, you've described them quite accurately. A god is onlyworshiped as long as the people think him powerful enough to aid andprotect them; when they lose that confidence, he is discarded and thegod of some neighboring people is adopted instead. " He turned toBrannad Klav. "Didn't Stranor report this situation to you when itfirst developed?" he asked. "I know he did; he speaks of receivingshipments of grain by conveyer for temple distribution. Then whydidn't you report it to Paratime Police? That's what we have aParatime Police Force for. "

"Well, yes, of course, but I had enough confidence in Stranor Sleth tothink that he could handle the situation himself. I didn't know he'dgone slack--"

"Look, I can't make weather, even if my parishioners think I can, "Stranor Sleth defended himself. "And I can't make a great militarygenius out of a blockhead like Kurchuk. And I can't immunize all therabbits on this time-line against tularemia, even if I'd had anyreason to expect a tularemia epidemic, which I hadn't because thedisease is unknown on this sector; this is the only outbreak of itanybody's ever heard of on any Proto-Aryan time-line. "

"No, but I'll tell you what you could have done, " Verkan Vall toldhim. "When this Kurchuk started to apostatize, you could have gone tohim at the head of a procession of priests, all paratimers and allarmed with energy-weapons, and pointed out his spiritual duty to him, and if he gave you any back talk, you could have pulled out thatneedler and rayed him down and then cried, 'Behold the vengeance ofYat-Zar upon the wicked king!' I'll bet any sum at any odds that hissuccessor would have thought twice about going over to Muz-Azin, andnone of these other kings would have even thought once about it. "

"Ha, that's what I wanted to do!" Stranor Sleth exclaimed. "And whostopped me? I'll give you just one guess. "

"Well, it seems there was slackness here, but it wasn't Stranor Slethwho was slack, " Verkan Vall commented. 

"Well! I must say; I never thought I'd hear an officer of the ParatimePolice criticizing me for trying to operate inside the ParatimeTransposition Code!" Brannad Klav exclaimed. 

Verkan Vall, sitting on the edge of Stranor Sleth's desk, aimed hiscigarette at Brannad Klav like a blaster. 

"Now, look, " he began. "There is one, and only one, inflexible lawregarding outtime activities. The secret of paratime transpositionmust be kept inviolate, and any activity tending to endanger it isprohibited. That's why we don't allow the transposition of any objectof extraterrestrial origin to any time-line on which space travel hasnot been developed. Such an object may be preserved, and then, afterthe local population begin exploring the planet from whence it came, there will be dangerous speculations and theories as to how itarrived on Terra at such an early date. I came within inches, literally, of getting myself killed, not long ago, cleaning up theresult of a violation of that regulation. For the same reason, wedon't allow the export, to outtime natives, of manufactured goods toofar in advance of their local culture. That's why, for instance, youpeople have to hand-finish all those big Yat-Zar idols, to removetraces of machine work. One of those things may be around, a fewthousand years from now, when these people develop a mechanicalcivilization. But as far as raying down this Kurchuk is concerned, these Hulguns are completely nonscientific. They wouldn't have theleast idea what happened. They'd believe that Yat-Zar struck him dead, as gods on this plane of culture are supposed to do, and if any ofthem noticed the needler at all, they'd think it was just a holyamulet of some kind. "

[Illustration:]

"But the law is the law--" Brannad Klav began. 

Verkan Vall shook his head. "Brannad, as I understand, you werepromoted to your present position on the retirement of Salvan Marth, about ten years ago; up to that time, you were in your company'sfinancial department. You were accustomed to working subject to theFirst Level Commercial Regulation Code. Now, any law binding upon ourpeople at home, on the First Level, is inflexible. It has to be. Wefound out, over fifty centuries ago, that laws have to be rigid andwithout discretionary powers in administration in order that peoplemay be able to predict their effect and plan their activitiesaccordingly. Naturally, you became conditioned to operating in such aclimate of legal inflexibility. 

"But in paratime, the situation is entirely different. There exist, within the range of the Ghaldron-Hesthor paratemporal-field generator, a number of time-lines of the order of ten to the hundred-thousandthpower. In effect, that many different worlds. In the past ten thousandyears, we have visited only the tiniest fraction of these, but we havefound everything from time-lines inhabited only by subhuman ape-men toSecond Level civilizations which are our own equal in every respectbut knowledge of paratemporal transposition. We even know of oneSecond Level civilization which is approaching the discovery of aninterstellar hyperspatial drive, something we've never even come closeto. And in between are every degree of savagery, barbarism andcivilization. Now, it's just not possible to frame any single code oflaws applicable to conditions on all of these. The best we can do isprohibit certain flagrantly immoral types of activity, such asslave-trading, introduction of new types of narcotic drugs, orout-and-out piracy and brigandage. If you're in doubt as to thelegality of anything you want to do outtime, go to the JudicialSection of the Paratime Commission and get an opinion on it. That'swhere you made your whole mistake. You didn't find out just how far itwas 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 Zurb. "

"Well, a week ago, Kurchuk came out with this decree closing ourtemple at Zurb and ordering his subjects to perform worship and makemoney offerings to Muz-Azin. The Zurb temple isn't a mask for a mine:Zurb's too far south for the uranium deposits. It's just a center forpropaganda and that sort of thing. But they have a House of Yat-Zar, and a conveyer, and most of the upper-priests are paratimers. Well, our man there, Tammand Drav, alias Khoram, defied the king's order, soKurchuk sent a company of Chuldun archers to close the temple andarrest the priests. Tammand Drav got all his people who were in thetemple at the time into the House of Yat-Zar and transposed them backto the First Level. He had orders"--Stranor Sleth looked meaningly atBrannad Klav--"not to resist with energy-weapons or even ultrasonicparalyzers. And while we're on the subject of letting the local yokelssee too much, about fifteen of the under-priests he took to the FirstLevel were Hulgun natives. "

"Nothing wrong about that: they'll get memory-obliteration andpseudo-memory treatment, " Verkan Vall said. "But he should have beenallowed to needle about a dozen of those Chulduns. Teach the beggarsto respect Yat-Zar in the future. Now, how about the six priests whowere 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 bedone before sunset tomorrow. They are all in the dungeon of the palacecitadel, and Kurchuk is going to give them to the priests of Muz-Azinto be sacrificed tomorrow evening. "

"How'd you learn that?" Verkan Vall asked. 

"Oh, we have a man in Zurb, not connected with the temple, " StranorSleth said. "Name's Crannar Jurth; calls himself Kranjur, locally. Hehas a swordmaker's shop, employs about a dozen native journeymen andapprentices who hammer out the common blades he sells in the openmarket. Then, he imports a few high-class alloy-steel blades from theFirst Level, that'll cut through this local low-carbon armor likecheese. Fits them with locally-made hilts and sells them atunbelievable prices to the nobility. He's Swordsmith to the King;picks up all the inside palace dope. Of course, he was among the firstto accept the New Gospel and go over to Muz-Azin. He has a secret roomunder his shop, with his conveyer and a radio. 

"What happened was this: These six priests were at a consecrationceremony at a rabbit-ranch outside the city, and they didn't knowabout the raid on the temple. On their way back, they were surroundedby Chuldun archers and taken prisoner. They had no weapons but theirsacrificial knives. " He threw another dirty look at Brannad Klav. "Sothey're due to go up on the triangles at sunset tomorrow. "

"We'll have to get them out before then, " Verkan Vall stated. "They'reour people, and we can't let them down; even the native is under ourprotection, whether he knows it or not. And in the second place, ifthose priests are sacrificed to Muz-Azin, " he told Brannad Klav, "youcan shut down everything on this time-line, pull out or disintegrateyour installations, and fill in your mine-tunnels. Yat-Zar will bethrough on this time-line, and you'll be through along with him. Andconsidering that your fissionables franchise for this sector comes upfor renewal next year, your company will be through in this paratimearea. "

"You believe that would happen?" Brannad Klav asked anxiously. 

"I know it will, because I'll put through a recommendation to thateffect, if those six men are tortured to death tomorrow, " Verkan Vallreplied. "And in the fifty years that I've been in the PoliceDepartment, I've only heard of five such recommendations being ignoredby the commission. You know, Fourth Level Mineral Products Syndicateis after your franchise. Ordinarily, they wouldn't have a chance ofgetting it, but with this, maybe they will, even without myrecommendation. This was all your fault, for ignoring Stranor Sleth'sproposal and for denying those men the right to carry energy weapons. "

"Well, we were only trying to stay inside the Paratime Code, " BrannadKlav pleaded. "If it isn't too late, now, you can count on me forevery co-operation. " He fiddled with some papers on the desk. "What doyou want me to do to help?"

"I'll tell you that in a minute. " Verkan Vall walked to the wall andlooked at the map, then returned to Stranor Sleth's desk. "How aboutthese dungeons?" he asked. "How are they located, and how can we getin to them?"

"I'm afraid we can't, " Stranor Sleth told him. "Not without fightingour way in. They're under the palace citadel, a hundred feet belowground. They're spatially co-existent with the heavy water barriersaround one of our company's plutonium piles on the First Level, andbelow surface on any unoccupied time-line I know of, so we can'ttranspose in to them. This palace is really a walled city inside acity. Here, I'll show you. "

Going around the desk, he sat down and, after looking in theindex-screen, punched a combination on the keyboard. A picture, projected from the microfilm-bank, appeared on the view-screen. It wasan air-view of the city of Zurb--taken, the high priest explained, byinfrared light from an airboat over the city at night. It showed acity of an entirely pre-mechanical civilization, with narrow streets, lined on either side by low one and two story buildings. Althoughthere would be considerable snow in winter, the roofs were usuallyflat, probably massive stone slabs supported by pillars within. Evenin the poorer sections, this was true except for the very meanesthouses and out-buildings, which were thatched. Here and there, somehuge pile of masonry would rear itself above its lower neighbors, and, where the streets were wider, occasional groups of large buildingswould be surrounded by battlemented walls. Stranor Sleth indicated oneof the larger of these. 

"Here's the palace, " he said. "And here's the temple of Yat-Zar, abouthalf a mile away. " He touched a large building, occupying an entireblock; between it and the palace was a block-wide park, with lawns andtrees on either side of a wide roadway connecting the two. 

"Now, here's a detailed view of the palace. " He punched anothercombination; the view of the City was replaced by one, taken fromdirectly 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 slaves' quarters and the stables andworkshops and store houses and so on. Over here, on the other side, are the nobles' quarters. And this, "--he indicated a toweringstructure at the rear of the walled enclosure--"is the citadel and theroyal dwelling. Audience hall on this side; harem over here on thisside. A wide stone platform, about fifteen feet high, runs completelyacross the front of the citadel, from the audience hall to the harem. Since this picture was taken, the new temple of Muz-Azin was builtright about here. " He indicated that it extended out from the audiencehall into the central courtyard. "And out here on the platform, they've put up about a dozen of these triangles, about twelve feethigh, on which the sacrificial victims are whipped to death. "

"Yes. About the only way we could get down to the dungeons would be tomake an airdrop onto the citadel roof and fight our way down withneedlers and blasters, and I'm not willing to do that as long asthere's any other way, " Verkan Vall said. "We'd lose men, even withneedlers against bows, and there's a chance that some of our equipmentmight be lost in the melee and fall into outtime hands. You say thissacrifice comes off tomorrow at sunset?"

"That would be about actual sunset plus or minus an hour; these peoplearen't astronomers, they don't even have good sundials, and it mightbe a cloudy day, " Stranor Sleth said. "There will be a big idol ofMuz-Azin on a cart, set about here. " He pointed. "After the sacrifice, it is to be dragged down this road, outside, to the temple of Yat-Zar, and set up there. The temple is now occupied by about twenty Chuldunmercenaries and five or six priests of Muz-Azin. They haven't, ofcourse, got into the House of Yat-Zar; the door's of impervium steel, about six inches thick, with a plating of collapsed nickel under thegilding. It would take a couple of hours to cut through it with ourbest atomic torch; there isn't a tool on this time-line that couldeven scratch it. And the insides of the walls are lined with the samething. "

"Do you think our people have been tortured, yet?" Verkan Vall asked. 

"No. " Stranor Sleth was positive. "They'll be fairly well treated, until the sacrifice. The idea's to make them last as long as possibleon the triangles; Muz-Azin likes to see a slow killing, and so doesthe mob of spectators. "

"That's good. Now, here's my plan. We won't try to rescue them fromthe dungeons. Instead, we'll transpose back to the Zurb temple fromthe First Level, in considerable force--say a hundred or so men--andmarch on the palace, to force their release. You're in constant radiocommunication with all the other temples on this time-line, Isuppose?"

"Yes, certainly. "

"All right. Pass this out to everybody, authority Paratime Police, inmy name, acting for Tortha Karf. I want all paratimers who canpossibly be spared to transpose to First Level immediately andrendezvous at the First Level terminal of the Zurb temple conveyer assoon as possible. Close down all mining operations, and turn overtemple routine to the native under-priests. You can tell them that theupper-priests are retiring to their respective Houses of Yat-Zar topray for the deliverance of the priests in the hands of King Kurchuk. And everybody is to bring back his priestly regalia to the FirstLevel; that will be needed. " He turned to Brannad Klav. "I suppose youkeep spare regalia in stock on the First Level?"

"Yes, of course; we keep plenty of everything in stock. Robes, miters, false beards of different shades, everything. "

"And these big Yat-Zar idols: they're mass-produced on the FirstLevel? You have one available now? Good. I'll want some alterationsmade on one. For one thing, I'll want it plated heavily, all over, with collapsed nickel. For another, I'll want it fitted with antigravunits and some sort of propulsion-units, and a loud-speaker, andremote control. 

[Illustration:]

"And, Stranor, you get in touch with this swordmaker, Crannar Jurth, and alert him to co-operate with us. Tell him to start calling Zurbtemple on his radio about noon tomorrow, and keep it up till he getsan answer. Or, better, tell him to run his conveyer to his First Levelterminal, and bring with him an extra suit of clothes appropriate tothe role of journeyman-mechanic. I'll want to talk to him, and furnishhim with special equipment. Got all that? Well, carry on with it, andbring your own paratimers, priests and mining operators, back with youas 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 ofwork to do, so let's get started. "

"Anything I can do to help, just call on me for it, " Brannad Klavpromised earnestly. "And, Stranor, I want to apologize. I'll admit, now, that I ought to have followed your recommendations, when thissituation first developed. "

 * * * * *

By noon of the next day, Verkan Vall had at least a hundred mengathered in the big room at the First Level fissionables refinery atJarnabar, spatially co-existent with the Fourth Level temple ofYat-Zar at Zurb. He was having a little trouble distinguishing betweenthem, for every man wore the fringed blue robe and golden miter of anupper-priest, and had his face masked behind a blue false beard. Itwas, he admitted to himself, a most ludicrous-looking assemblage; oneof the most ludicrous things about it was the fact that it would haveinspired only pious awe in a Hulgun of the Fourth Level Proto-AryanSector. About half of them were priests from the Transtemporal MiningCorporation's temples; the other half were members of the ParatimePolice. All of them wore, in addition to their temple knives, holstered sigma-ray needlers. Most of them carried ultrasonicparalyzers, eighteen-inch batonlike things with bulbous ends. Most ofthe Paratime Police and a few of the priests also carried eitherheat-ray pistols or neutron-disruption blasters; Verkan Vall wore oneof the latter in a left-hand belt holster. 

The Paratime Police were lined up separately for inspection, andStranor Sleth, Tammand Drav of the Zurb temple, and several other highpriests were checking the authenticity of their disguises. A littleapart from the others, a Paratime Policeman, in high priest's robesand beard, had a square box slung in front of him; he was fiddlingwith knobs and buttons on it, practicing. A big idol of Yat-Zar, onantigravity, was floating slowly about the room in obedience to itsremote controls, rising and lowering, turning about and pirouettinggracefully. 

"Hey, Vall!" he called to his superior. "How's this?"

The idol rose about five feet, turned slowly in a half-circle, movedto the right a little, and then settled slowly toward the floor. 

"Fine, fine, Horv, " Verkan Vall told him, "but don't set it down onanything, or turn off the antigravity. There's enough collapsednickel-plating on that thing to sink it a yard in soft ground. "

"I don't know what the idea of that was, " Brannad Klav, standingbeside him, said. "Understand, I'm not criticizing. I haven't anyright to, under the circumstances. But it seems to me that armoringthat thing in collapsed nickel was an unnecessary precaution. "

"Maybe it was, " Verkan Vall agreed. "I sincerely hope so. But we can'ttake any chances. This operation has to be absolutely right. Ready, Tammand? All right; first detail into the conveyer. "

He turned and strode toward a big dome of fine metallic mesh, thirtyfeet high and sixty in diameter, at the other end of the room. TammandDrav, and his ten paratimer priests, and Brannad Klav, and tenParatime Police, followed him in. One of the latter slid shut the doorand locked it; Verkan Vall went to the control desk, at the center ofthe dome, and picked up a two-foot globe of the same fine metallicmesh, opening it and making some adjustments inside, then attaching anelectric cord and closing it. He laid the globe on the floor near thedesk and picked up the hand battery at the other end of the attachedcord. 

"Not taking any chances at all, are you?" Brannad Klav asked, watchingthis operation with interest. 

"I never do, unnecessarily. There are too many necessary chances thathave to be taken, in this work. " Verkan Vall pressed the button on thehand battery. The globe on the floor flashed and vanished. "Yesterday, five paratimers were arrested. Any or all of them could have haddoor-activators with them. Stranor Sleth says they were not tortured, but that is a purely inferential statement. They may have been, andthe use of the activator may have been extorted from one of them. So Iwant a look at the inside of that conveyer-chamber before we transposeinto it. "

He laid the hand battery, with the loose-dangling wire that had beenleft behind, on the desk, then lit a cigarette. The others gatheredaround, smoking and watching, careful to avoid the place from whichthe globe had vanished. Thirty minutes passed, and then, in a queeriridescence, the globe reappeared. Verkan Vall counted ten seconds andpicked it up, taking it to the desk and opening it to remove a smallsquare box. This he slid into a space under the desk and flipped aswitch. Instantly, a view-screen lit up and a three-dimensionalpicture appeared--the interior of a big room a hundred feet square andsome seventy in height. There was a big desk and a radio; tables, couches, chairs and an arms-rack full of weapons, and at one end, aremarkably clean sixty-foot circle on the concrete floor, outlined infaintly luminous red. 

"How about it?" Verkan Vall asked Tammand 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 Vall's place at the control desk andthrew the master switch, after checking the instruments. Immediately, the paratemporal-transposition field went on with a humming sound thatmounted to a high scream, then settled to a steady drone. The meshdome flickered with a cold iridescence and vanished, and they werelooking into the interior of a great fissionables refinery plant, operated by paratimers on another First Level time-line. Thestructural details altered, from time-line to time-line, as theywatched. Buildings appeared and vanished. Once, for a few seconds, they were inside a cool, insulated bubble in the midst of molten lead. Tammand Drav jerked a thumb at it, before it vanished. 

"That always bothers me, " he said. "Bad place for the field to goweak. I'm fussy as an old hen about inspection of the conveyer, onaccount of that. "

"Don't blame you, " Verkan Vall agreed. "Probably the cooling system ofa 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 tanklikevehicles spouting flame at one another. Another moment was spent in anair bombardment. On any time-line, this section of East Europe was anatural battleground. Once a great procession marched toward them, carrying red banners and huge pictures of a coarse-faced man with ablack mustache--Verkan Vall recognized the environment as Fourth LevelEuropo-American Sector. Finally, as the transposition-rate slowed, they saw a clutter of miserable thatched huts, in the rear of agranite wall of a Fourth Level Hulgun temple of Yat-Zar--a temple notyet infiltrated by Transtemporal Mining Corporation agents. Finally, they were at their destination. The dome around them became visible, and an overhead green light flashed slowly on and off. 

Verkan Vall opened the door and stepped outside, his needler drawn. The House of Yat-Zar was just as he had seen it in the picturephotographed by the automatic reconnaissance-conveyer. The otherscrowded outside after him. One of the regular priests pulled off hismiter and beard and went to the radio, putting on a headset. VerkanVall and Tammand Drav snapped on the visiscreen, getting a view of theHoly of Holies outside. 

There were six men there, seated at the upper-priests' banquet table, drinking from golden goblets. Five of them wore the black robes withgreen facings which marked them as priests of Muz-Azin; the sixth wasan officer of the Chuldun archers, in gilded mail and helmet. 

"Why, those are the sacred vessels of the temple!" Tammand Drav cried, scandalized. Then he laughed in self-ridicule. "I'm beginning to takethis stuff seriously, myself; time I put in for a long vacation. I wasactually shocked at the sacrilege!"

"Well, let's overtake the infidels in their sins, " Verkan Vall said. "Paralyzers will be good enough. "

He picked up one of the bulb-headed weapons, and unlocked the door. Tammand Drav and another of the priests of the Zurb temple followingand the others crowding behind, they passed out through the veils, andburst into the Holy of Holies. Verkan Vall pointed the bulb of hisparalyzer at the six seated men and pressed the button; otherparalyzers came into action, and the whole sextet were knockedsenseless. The officer rolled from his chair and fell to the floor ina clatter of armor. Two of the priests slumped forward on the table. The others merely sank back in their chairs, dropping their goblets. 

"Give each one of them another dose, to make sure, " Verkan Valldirected a couple of his own men. "Now, Tammand; any other way intothe main temple beside that door?"

"Up those steps, " Tammand Drav pointed. "There's a gallery along theside; we can cover the whole room from there. "

"Take your men and go up there. I'll take a few through the door. There'll be about twenty archers out there, and we don't want any ofthem loosing any arrows before we can knock them out. Three minutes betime enough?"

"Easily. Make it two, " Tammand Drav said. 

 * * * * *

He took his priests up the stairway and vanished into the gallery ofthe temple. Verkan Vall waited until one minute had passed and then, followed by Brannad Klav and a couple of Paratime Policemen, he wentunder the plinth and peered out into the temple. Five or six archers, in steel caps and sleeveless leather jackets sewn with steel rings, were gathered around the altar, cooking something in a pot on thefire. Most of the others, like veteran soldiers, were sprawled on thefloor, trying to catch a short nap, except half a dozen, who crouchedin a circle, playing some game with dice--another almost universalmilitary practice. 

The two minutes were up. He aimed his paralyzer at the men around thealtar and squeezed the button, swinging it from one to another andknocking them down with a bludgeon of inaudible sound. At the sametime, Tammand Drav and his detail were stunning the gamblers. Steppingforward and to one side, Verkan Vall, Brannad Klav and the others tookcare of the sleepers on the floor. In less than thirty seconds, everyChuldun in the temple was incapacitated. 

"All right, make sure none of them come out of it prematurely, " VerkanVall directed. "Get their weapons, and be sure nobody has a knife oranything hidden on him. Who has the syringe and the sleep-drugampoules?"

Somebody had, it developed, who was still on the First Level, to comeup with the second conveyer load. Verkan Vall swore. Something likethis always happened, on any operation involving more than half adozen men. 

"Well, some of you stay here: patrol around, and use your paralyzerson anybody who even twitches a muscle. " Ultrasonics were nice, effective, humane police weapons, but they were unreliable. The samedose that would keep one man out for an hour would paralyze anotherfor no more than ten or fifteen minutes. "And be sure none of them areplaying 'possum. "

He went back through the door under the plinth, glancing up at thedecorated wooden screen and wondering how much work it would take tomove the new Yat-Zar in from the conveyers. The five priests and thearcher-captain were still unconscious; one of the policemen wassearching them. 

"Here's the sort of weapons these priests carry, " he said, holding upa short iron mace with a spiked head. "Carry them on their belts. " Hetossed it on the table, and began searching another knocked-outhierophant. "Like this--_Hey!_ Look at this, will you!"

He drew his hand from under the left side of the senseless man's robeand held up a sigma-ray needler. Verkan Vall looked at it and noddedgrimly. 

"Had it in a regular shoulder holster, " the policeman said, handingthe weapon across the table. "What do you think?"

"Find anything else funny on him?"

"Wait a minute. " The policeman pulled open the robe and beganstripping the priest of Muz-Azin; Verkan Vall came around the table tohelp. There was nothing else of a suspicious nature. 

"Could have got it from one of the prisoners, but I don't like thefamiliar way he's wearing that holster, " Verkan Vall said. "Has theconveyer gone back, yet?" When the policeman nodded, he continued:"When it returns, take him to the First Level. I hope they bring upthe sleep-drug with the next load. When you get him back, take him toDhergabar by strato-rocket immediately, and make sure he gets backalive. I want him questioned under narco-hypnosis by a regularParatime Commission psycho-technician, in the presence of Chief TorthaKarf and some responsible Commission official. This is going to be hotstuff. "

Within an hour, the whole force was assembled in the temple. Thewooden screen had presented no problem--it slid easily to oneside--and the big idol floated on antigravity in the middle of thetemple. Verkan Vall was looking anxiously at his watch. 

"It's about two hours to sunset, " he said, to Stranor Sleth. "But asyou pointed out, these Hulguns aren't astronomers, and it's a bitcloudy. I wish Crannar Jurth would call in with something definite. "

Another twenty minutes passed. Then the man at the radio came out intothe temple. 

"O. K. !" he called. "The man at Crannar Jurth's called in. CrannarJurth contacted him with a midget radio he has up his sleeve; he's inthe palace courtyard now. They haven't brought out the victims, yet, but Kurchuk has just been carried out on his throne to that platformin front of the citadel. Big crowd gathering in the inner courtyard;more in the streets outside. Palace gates are wide open. "

"That's it!" Verkan Vall cried. "Form up; the parade's starting. Brannad, you and Tammand and Stranor and I in front; about ten menwith paralyzers a little behind us. Then Yat-Zar, about ten feet offthe ground, and then the others. Forward--_ho-o!_"

 * * * * *

They emerged from the temple and started down the broad roadway towardthe palace. There was not much of a crowd, at first. Most of Zurb hadflocked to the palace earlier; the lucky ones in the courtyard and thelate comers outside. Those whom they did meet stared at them inopen-mouthed amazement, and then some, remembering their doubts andblasphemies, began howling for forgiveness. Others--a substantialmajority--realizing that it would be upon King Kurchuk that the realweight of Yat-Zar's six hands would fall, took to their heels, tryingto put as much distance as possible between them and the palace beforethe blow fell. 

As the procession approached the palace gates, the crowds werethicker, made up of those who had been unable to squeeze themselvesinside. The panic was worse, here, too. A good many were trampled andhurt in the rush to escape, and it became necessary to use paralyzersto clear a way. That made it worse: everybody was sure that Yat-Zarwas striking sinners dead left and right. 

Fortunately, the gates were high enough to let the god through withoutlosing altitude appreciably. Inside, the mob surged back, clearing away across the courtyard. It was only necessary to paralyze a fewhere, and the levitated idol and its priestly attendants advancedtoward the stone platform, where the king sat on his throne, flankedby court functionaries and black-robed priests of Muz-Azin. In frontof this, a rank of Chuldun archers had been drawn up. 

"Horv; move Yat-Zar forward about a hundred feet and up about fifty, "Verkan Vall directed. "Quickly!"

As the six-armed anthropomorphic idol rose and moved closer toward itssaurian rival, Verkan Vall drew his needler, scanning the assemblagearound the throne anxiously. 

"_Where is the wicked King?_" a voice thundered--the voice of StranorSleth, speaking into a midget radio tuned to the loud-speaker insidethe idol. "_Where is the blasphemer and desecrator, Kurchuk?_"

"There's Labdurg, in the red tunic, beside the throne, " Tammand Dravwhispered. "And that's Ghromdur, the Muz-Azin high priest, besidehim. "

Verkan Vall nodded, keeping his eyes on the group on the platform. Ghromdur, the high priest of Muz-Azin, was edging backward andreaching under his robe. At the same time, an officer shouted anorder, and the Chuldun archers drew arrows from their quivers andfitted them to their bowstrings. Immediately, the ultrasonicparalyzers of the advancing paratimers went into action, and themercenaries began dropping. 

"_Lay down your weapons, fools!_" the amplified voice boomed at them. "_Lay down your weapons or you shall surely die! Who are you, miserable wretches, to draw bows against Me?_"

[Illustration:]

At first a few, then all of them, the Chulduns lowered or droppedtheir weapons and began edging away to the sides. At the center, infront of the throne, most of them had been knocked out. Verkan Vallwas still watching the Muz-Azin high priest intently; as Ghromdurraised his arm, there was a flash and a puff of smoke from the frontof Yat-Zar--the paint over the collapsed nickel was burned off, butotherwise the idol was undamaged. Verkan Vall swung up his needler andrayed Ghromdur dead; as the man in the green-faced black robes fell, ablaster clattered on the stone platform. 

"_Is that your puny best, Muz-Azin?_" the booming voice demanded. "_Where is your high priest now?_"

"Horv; face Yat-Zar toward Muz-Azin, " Verkan Vall said over hisshoulder, drawing his blaster with his left hand. Like all First Levelpeople, he was ambidextrous, although, like all paratimers, hehabitually concealed the fact while outtime. As the levitated idolswung slowly to look down upon its enemy on the built-up cart, VerkanVall aimed the blaster and squeezed. 

[Illustration:]

In a spot less than a millimeter in diameter on the crocodile idol'sside, a certain number of neutrons in the atomic structure of thestone from which it was carved broke apart, becoming, in effect, atomsof hydrogen. With a flash and a bang, the idol burst and vanished. Yat-Zar gave a dirty laugh and turned his back on the cart, which wasnow burning fiercely facing King Kurchuk again. 

"Get your hands up, all of you!" Verkan Vall shouted, in the FirstLevel language, swinging the stubby muzzle of the blaster and theknob-tipped twin tubes of the needler to cover the group around thethrone, "Come forward, before I start blasting!"

Labdurg raised his hands and stepped forward. So did two of thepriests of Yat-Zar. They were quickly seized by Paratime Policemen whoswarmed up onto the platform and disarmed. All three were carryingsigma-ray needlers, and Labdurg had a blaster as well. 

King Kurchuk was clinging to the arms of his throne, a badlyfrightened monarch trying desperately not to show it. He was a bigman, heavy-shouldered, black-bearded; under ordinary circumstances hewould probably have cut an imposing figure, in his gold-washed mailand his golden crown. Now his face was a dirty gray, and he was bitingnervously at his lower lip. The others on the platform were in evenworse state. The Hulgun nobles were grouped together, trying todisassociate themselves from both the king and the priests ofMuz-Azin. The latter were staring in a daze at the blazing cart fromwhich their idol had just been blasted. And the dozen men who were tohave done the actual work of the torture-sacrifice had all droppedtheir whips and were fairly gibbering in fear. 

Yat-Zar, manipulated by the robed paratimer, had taken a positiondirectly above the throne and was lowering slowly. Kurchuk stared upat the massive idol descending toward him, his knuckles white as heclung to the arms of his throne. He managed to hold out until he couldfeel the weight of the idol pressing on his head. Then, with a scream, he hurled himself from the throne and rolled forward almost to theedge of the platform. Yat-Zar moved to one side, swung slightly andknocked the throne toppling, and then settled down on the platform. ToKurchuk, who was rising cautiously on his hands and knees, the bigidol seemed to be looking at him in contempt. 

"_Where are my holy priests, Kurchuk?_" Stranor Sleth demanded in tohis sleeve-hidden radio. "_Let them be brought before me, alive andunharmed, or it shall be better for you had you never been born!_"

The six priests of Yat-Zar, it seemed, were already being brought ontothe platform by one of Kurchuk's nobles. This noble, whose name wasYorzuk, knew a miracle when he saw one, and believed in being on theside of the god with the heaviest artillery. As soon as he had seenYat-Zar coming through the gate without visible means of support, hehad hastened to the dungeons with half a dozen of his personalretainers and ordered the release of the six captives. He was nowescorting them onto the platform, assuring them that he had alwaysbeen a faithful servant of Yat-Zar and had been deeply grieved at hissovereign's apostasy. 

"_Hear my word, Kurchuk_, " Stranor Sleth continued through theloud-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 everbefore suffered. But I am a merciful god; behold, you may gainforgiveness in my sight. For thirty days, you shall neither eat meatnor drink wine, nor shall you wear gold nor fine raiment, and each dayshall you go to my temple and beseech me for my forgiveness. And onthe thirty-first day, you shall set out, barefoot and clad in the garbof a slave, and journey to my temple that is in the mountains overabove Yoldav, and there will I forgive you, after you have madesacrifice to me. I, Yat-Zar, have spoken!_"

The king started to rise, babbling thanks. 

"_Rise not before me until I have forgiven you!_" Yat-Zar thundered. "_Creep out of my sight upon your belly, wretch!_"

 * * * * *

The procession back to the temple was made quietly and sedately alongan empty roadway. Yat-Zar seemed to be in a kindly humor; the peopleof Zurb had no intention of giving him any reason to change his mood. The priests of Muz-Azin and their torturers had been flung into thedungeon. Yorzuk, appointed regent for the duration of Kurchuk'spenance, had taken control and was employing Hulgun spearmen andhastily-converted Chuldun 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 Levelweapons among them and Yat-Zar floating triumphantly in front, enteredthe temple. A few of the devout, who sought admission after them, weretold that elaborate and secret rites were being held to cleanse theprofaned altar, and sent away. 

Verkan Vall and Brannad Klav and Stranor Sleth were in the conveyerchamber, with the Paratime Policemen and the extra priests; along withthem were the three prisoners. Verkan Vall pulled off his false beardand turned to face these. He could see that they all recognized him. 

"Now, " he began, "you people are in a bad jam. You've violated theParatime Transposition Code, the Commercial Regulation Code, and theFirst Level Criminal Code, all together. If you know what's good foryou, you'll start talking. "

"I'm not saying anything till I have legal advice, " the man who hadbeen using the local alias of Labdurg replied. "And if you're throughsearching me, I'd like to have my cigarettes and lighter back. "

"Smoke one of mine, for a change, " Verkan Vall told him. "I don't knowwhat's in yours beside tobacco. " He offered his case and held a lightfor the prisoner before lighting his own cigarette. "I'm going to besure you get back to the First Level alive. "

The former Overseer of the Kingdom of Zurb shrugged. "I'm still nottalking, " he said. 

"Well, we can get it all out of you by narco-hypnosis, anyhow, " VerkanVall told him. "Besides, we got that man of yours who was here at thetemple when we came in. He's being given a full treatment, as apresumed outtime native found in possession of First Level weapons. Ifyou 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, " hesaid. "I have friends on the First Level who'll take care of me. "

"I doubt that. They'll have their hands full taking care ofthemselves, after this gets out. " Verkan Vall turned to the two inthe black robes. "Either of you want to say anything?" When they shooktheir heads, he nodded to a group of his policemen; they were hustledinto the conveyer. "Take them to the First Level terminal and holdthem till I come in. I'll be along with the next conveyer load. "

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The conveyer flashed and vanished. Brannad Klav stared for a moment atthe circle of concrete floor from whence it had disappeared. Then heturned to Verkan Vall. 

"I still can't believe it, " he said. "Why, those fellows were FirstLevel paratimers. So was that priest, Ghromdur: the one you rayed. "

"Yes, of course. They worked for your rivals, the Fourth Level MineralProducts Syndicate; the outfit that was trying to get your Proto-AryanSector fissionables franchise away from you. They operate on this sectoralready; have the petroleum franchise for the Chuldun country, east ofthe Caspian Sea. They export to some of these internal-combustion-enginesectors, like Europo-American. You know, most of the wars they've beenfighting, lately, on the Europo-American Sector have been, at least inpart, motivated by rivalry for oil fields. But now that theEuropo-Americans have begun to release nuclear energy, fissionables havebecome more important than oil. In less than a century, it's predictedthat atomic energy will replace all other forms of power. MineralProducts 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 Stranor, here, mentioned that tularemia was normally unknown in Eurasia on thissector. That epidemic must have been started by imported germs. And Iknew that Mineral Products has agents at the court of the Chuldunemperor, Chombrog: they have to, to protect their oil wells on hiseastern frontiers. I spent most of last night checking up on somestuff by video-transcription from the Paratime Commission's microfilmlibrary at Dhergabar. I found out, for one thing, that while there isa King Kurchuk of Zurb on every time-line for a hundred para-years oneither side of this one, this is the only time-line on which hemarried a Princess Darith of Chuldun, and it's the only time-line onwhich there is any trace of a Chuldun scribe named Labdurg. 

"That's why I went to all the trouble of having that Yat-Zar platedwith collapsed nickel. If there were disguised paratimers among theMuz-Azin party at Kurchuk's court, I expected one of them to try toblast our idol when we brought it into the palace. I was watchingGhromdur and Labdurg in particular; as soon as Ghromdur used hisblaster, I needled him. After that, it was easy. "

"Was that why you insisted on sending that automatic viewer onahead?"

"Yes. There was a chance that they might have planted a bomb in theHouse of Yat-Zar, here. I knew they'd either do that or let the placeentirely alone. I suppose they were so confident of getting away withthis that they didn't want to damage the conveyer or the conveyerchamber. They expected to use them, themselves, after they took overyour company's franchise. "

"Well, what's going to be done about it by the Commission?" BrannadKlav wanted to know. 

"Plenty. The syndicate will probably lose their paratime license; anyof its officials who had guilty knowledge of this will be dealt withaccording to law. You know, this was a pretty nasty business. "

"You're telling me!" Stranor Sleth exclaimed. "Did you get a look atthose whips they were going to use on our people? Pointed iron barbs aquarter-inch long braided into them, all over the lash-ends!"

"Yes. Any punitive action you're thinking about taking on thesepriests of Muz-Azin--the natives, I mean--will be ignored on the FirstLevel. 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 Yorzukto have them sold to the Bhunguns, to the east. They're always in themarket for galley slaves, " Stranor Sleth said. He turned to BrannadKlav. "And I'll want six gold crowns made up, as soon as possible. Strictly Hulgun design, with Yat-Zar religious symbolism, very richand ornate, all slightly different. When I give Kurchuk absolution, I'll crown him at the altar in the name of Yat-Zar. Then I'll invitein the other five Hulgun kings, lecture them on their religiousduties, make them confess their secret doubts, forgive them, and crownthem, too. From then on, they can all style themselves as ruling bythe will of Yat-Zar. "

"And from then on, you'll have all of them eating out of your hand, "Verkan Vall concluded. "You know, this will probably go down in Hulgunhistory as the Reformation of Ghullam the Holy. I've always wonderedwhether the theory of the divine right of kings was invented by thekings, to establish their authority over the people, or by thepriests, to establish _their_ authority over the kings. It works aboutas well one way as the other. "

"What I can't understand is this, " Brannad Klav said. "It was entirelybecause of my respect for the Paratime Code that I kept Stranor Slethfrom using Fourth Level weapons and other techniques to control thesepeople with a show of apparent miraculous powers. But this FourthLevel Mineral Products Syndicate was operating in violation of theParatime Code by invading our franchise area. Why didn't they fake upa supernatural reign of terror to intimidate these natives?"

"Ha, exactly because they _were_ operating illegally, " Verkan Vallreplied. "Suppose they had started using needlers and blasters andantigravity and nuclear-energy around here. The natives would havethought it was the power of Muz-Azin, of course, but what would youhave thought? You'd have known, as soon as they tried it, that FirstLevel paratimers were working against you, and you'd have laid thefacts before the Commission, and this time-line would have beenflooded with Paratime Police. They had to conceal their operations notonly from the natives, as you do, but also from us. So they didn'tdare make public use of First Level techniques. 

"Of course, when we came marching into the palace with that idol onantigravity, they knew, at once, what was happening. I have an ideathat they only tried to blast that idol to create a diversion whichwould permit them to escape--if they could have got out of the palace, they'd have made their way, in disguise, to the nearest MineralProducts Syndicate conveyer and transposed out of here. I realizedthat they could best delay us by blasting our idol, and that's why Ihad it plated with collapsed nickel. I think that where they madetheir mistake was in allowing Kurchuk to have those priests arrested, and insisting on sacrificing them to Muz-Azin. If it hadn't been forthat, the Paratime Police wouldn't have been brought into this, atall. 

"Well, Stranor, you'll want to get back to your temple, and Brannadand I want to get back to the First Level. I'm supposed to take mywife to a banquet in Dhergabar, tonight, and with the fasteststrato-rocket, I'll just barely make it. "

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