“Not much.” Bryan shook himself. “Cracked my left collarbone, maybe.”
“Here — grab my hand. Can you make it? I’ve got to hang on to my staff.” Between them they got him out. “I’ll have to leave you. Got your basic weapon?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. Good luck.’,’ He glanced at the crater as he moved away. It was well, he thought, that he had had his shield turned on.
A few dozen Americans were moving cautiously among the buildings, shooting as they went. Twice Ardmore was fired on by men who had been told to shoot first. Good boys! Shoot anything that moves!
A PanAsian aircraft, flying low, cut slowly across the edge of the campus. It trailed a plume of heavy yellow fog. Gas! They were gassing their own troops in order to kill a handful of Americans. The bank of mist settled slowly toward the ground and rolled in his direction. He suddenly realized that this was serious, for him as well as for others.
His shield was little protection against gas, for it was necessary to let air filter through it.
But he was attempting to get a line on the aircraft even as he decided that his own turn had come. The craft wavered and crashed before he could line up on it. So the scout car was on the job after all — good!
The gas came on. Could he run around the edge of it? No. Perhaps he could hold his breath and run through it, trusting to his shield for all other matters. Not likely.
Some unconscious recess of his brain gave him the answer — transmutation. A few seconds later, his staff set to radiate in a wide cone, he was blasting a hole in the deadly cloud. Back and forth he swept the cone, as if playing a stream of water with a hose, and the foggy particles changed to harmless, life-giving oxygen.
“Jeff!”
“Yes, Chief?”
“Any trouble with gas?”
“Quite a bit. In — ”
“Never mind. Broadcast this on Circuit A: Set staff to — ” He went on to describe how to fight that most intangible weapon.
The scout car came screaming down out of heaven, hovered, and began cruising back and forth over the dormitory barracks. The campus became suddenly very silent. That was better; apparently the pilot had just had too much to do at one time. Ardmore felt suddenly alone, the fight had moved past him while he was dealing with the gas threat. He looked around for transportation to commandeer in order to scout around and check up on the fighting in the rest of the city. The trouble with this damn battle, he thought to himself, is that it hasn’t any coherence; it’s every place at once. No help for it; it was in the nature of the problem.
“Chief?” It was Thomas calling.
“Go ahead, Jeff. ”
“Wilkie is heading your way.”
“Good. Has he had any luck?”
“Yes, but just wait till you see! I caught a glimpse of it in the screen, transmitted from Kansas City. That’s all now.”
“O.K.” He looked around again for transportation. He wanted to be around some PanAsians, some live PanAsians, when Wilkie arrived. There was a monocycle standing at the curb, abandoned, about a block from the campus. He appropriated it.
There were PanAsians, he discovered, in plenty near the palace — and the battle was not going too well for the Americans. He added the effort of his staff and was very busy picking out individuals and exploding them when Wilkie arrived.
Enormous, incredible, a Gargantuan manlike figure of perfect black — more than a thousand feet high, it came striding across the buildings, its feet filling the streets. It was as if the Empire State Building had gone for a stroll — a giant, three-dimensional shadow of a priest of Mota, complete with robes and staff.
It had a voice.
It had a voice that rolled with thunder, audible and distinct for miles.
“Americans, arise! The day is at hand! The Disciple has come! Rise up and smite your masters!”
Ardmore wondered how the men in the car, could stand the noise, wondered also if they were flying inside the projection, or somewhere above it.