There were more doors to pass, more bodies to clamber over before he found himself outside. When he did, he was completely unoriented.
“Jeff,” he called, “where am I?”
“Just a second, Chief. You’re — No, we can’t get a fix on you, but you are on a line of bearing almost due south of the nearest temple. Are you still near the palace?”
“Just outside it.”
“Then head north — it’s about nine squares.”
“Which way is north? I’m all turned around. No wait a minute — I just located the Big Dipper, I’m all right.”
“Hurry, Chief.”
“I will.” He set out at a quick dogtrot, kept it up for a couple of hundred yards, then dropped into a fast walk. Damn it, he thought, a man gets out of condition with all this desk work.
Ardmore encountered several Asiatic police, but they were in no condition to notice him; he had kept the primary effect turned on. There were no whites about — the curfew was strict with the exception of a pair of startled street cleaners. It occurred to him that he should induce them to go with him to the temple, but he decided against it; they were in no more danger than a hundred fifty million others.
There was the temple! — its four walls glowing with the colors of attributes. He broke into a run and burst inside. The local priest was almost at his heels, arriving from the other direction.
He greeted the priest heartily, suddenly realizing the strain he had been under in finding how good it was to speak to a man of his own kind
— a comrade. The two of them ducked around back of the altar and went down below to the control and communication room, where the pararadio operator and his opposite number were almost hysterically glad to see them. They offered him black coffee, which he accepted gratefully. Then he told the operator to cut out of Circuit A and establish direct two-way connection with headquarters with vision converted into the circuit.
Thomas appeared to be about to jump out of the screen. “Whitey!” he yelled. It was the first time since the Collapse that anyone had called Ardmore by his nickname. He was not even aware that Thomas knew it. But he felt warmed by the slip.
“Hi, Jeff,” he called to the image, “good to see you. Any reports in yet?”
“Some. They are coming in all the time.”
“Shift to relay through the diocese offices; Circuit A is too clumsy. I want a quick report.”
It was forthcoming. Within less than twenty minutes the last diocese had reported in. Every priest was back in his own temple. “Good,” he told Thomas. “Now I want the proprietor in each temple set for counteraction, and wake all those monkeys up. They ought to be able to use a directional concentration down the line each priest returned on, and reach clear back to the local jailhouse.”
“O.K., if you say so, Chief. May I ask why you don’t simply let ’em wake up when the effect wears off?’
“Because,” he explained, “if they simply come to before anybody finds them the effect will be much more mysterious than if they are found apparently dead. The object of the whole caper was to break the morale of the Asiatics. This increases the effect.”
“Right — as usual, Chief. The word is going out.”
“Fine. When that’s done, have them check the shielding of their temples, turn on the fourteen-cycle note, and go to bed — all that aren’t on duty. I imagine we’ll have a busy day tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir. Aren’t you coming back here, Chief?”
Ardmore shook his head. “It’s an unnecessary risk. I can supervise just as effectively through television as I could if I were standing right beside you.”
“Scheer is all set to fly over and pick you up. ‘He could set her down right on the temple roof.”
“Tell him thanks, but to forget it. Now you turn it over to the staff duty officer and get some sleep.”
“Just as you say, Chief.”
He had a midnight lunch with the local priest and some conversation, then. let the priest show him to a stateroom down underground.