However, someone had phoned ahead; they were met on the steps by a nervous Asiatic officer who demanded of them, “Surrender! You are under arrest!”
They walked straight toward him. Ward lifted one, hand in blessing and intoned, “Peace! Take me to my people.”
“Don’t you understand my language?” snapped the PanAsian, his voice becoming shrill. “You are under arrest!” His hand crept nervously toward his holster.
“Your earthly weapons avail you not,” said Ardmore calmly, “in dealing with the great Lord Mota. He commands you to lead me to my people. Be warned!” He continued to advance until his personal screen pushed against the man’s body.
It — the disembodied pressure of the invisible screen — was more than the PanAsian could stand. He fell back a pace, jerked his sidearm clear and fired point-blank. The vortex ring struck harmlessly against the screen, was absorbed by it.
“Lord Mota is impatient,” remarked Ardmore in a mild tone. “Lead his servant, before the Lord Mota sucks the soul from your body.” He shifted to another effect, never before used in dealing with the PanAsians.
The principle involved was very simple; a cylindrical tractor-pressor stasis was projected, forming in effect a tube. Ardmore let it rest over the man’s face, then applied a tractor beam down the tube. The unfortunate PanAsian gasped for air where there was no air and pawed at his face. When his nose began to bleed, Ardmore let up on him. “Where are my children?” he inquired again as softly as before.
The police officer, probably in sheer reflex, tried to run. Ardmore nailed him with a pressor beam against the door and again applied momentarily the suction tube, this time to the fellow’s midriff. “Where are they?”
“In the park,” the man gasped, and regurgitated violently.
They turned with leisured dignity, and headed back down the steps, sweeping those who had pressed too close casually out of the way with the pressor beam.
The park surrounded the erstwhile State capitol building. They found the congregation herded into a hastily erected bull pen which was surrounded by ranks of Asiatic soldiers. On a platform nearby, technicians were installing television pick-up. It was easy to infer that another public “lesson” was to be given the serfs. Ardmore saw no evidence of the rather bulky apparatus used to produce the epileptogenetic ray; either it had not been brought up, or some other method of execution was to be used — perhaps the soldiers present were an enormous firing squad.
Momentarily he was tempted to use the staff to knock out all the soldiers present they were standing at ease with arms stacked, and it was conceivably possible that he might be able to do so before they could harm, not
Ardmore, but the helpless members of the congregation. But he decided against it; he had been right when he gave his orders to his priests — this was a game of bluff; he could not combat all of the soldiers that the PanAsian authorities could bring to bear, yet he must get this crowd safely inside the temple.
The massed people in the bull pen recognized Ward, and perhaps the high priest as well, at least by reputation. He could see sudden hope wipe despair from their faces — they surged expectantly. But he passed on by them with the briefest of blessing, Ward in his train, and hope gave way to doubt and bewilderment as they saw him stride up to the PanAsian commander and offer him the same blessing.
“Peace!” cried Ardmore. “I come to help you.”
The PanAsian barked an order in his own tongue. Two PanAsians ran up to Ardmore and attempted to seize him. They slithered off the screen, tried again, and then stood looking to their superior officer for instructions, like a dog bewildered by an impossible command.
Ardmore ignored them and continued his progress until he stood immediately in front of the commander. “I am told that my people have sinned,” he announced. “The Lord Mota will deal with them.”
Without waiting for an answer, he turned his back on the perplexed official and shouted, “In the name of Shaam, Lord of Peace!” and turned on the green ray from his staff.