Ardmore was suddenly aware that he was being called with urgency. Ringing in his head was the voice of Thomas: "Chief! Chief! Can you hear me? There's a squad of police at every temple, demanding the surrender of the priests -- we're getting reports in from all over the country!"
"The Lord Mota hears!" It was addressed to the Prince; would Jeff understand also?
Jeff again -- "Was that to me, Chief?"
"See to it that his followers understand." The Prince had answered too quickly for Ardmore to devise another double meaning in which to speak to Thomas. But he knew something that the Prince did not know he knew. Now to use it.
"How can I instruct my priests when you are even now arresting them?" Ardmore's manner changed suddenly from humble to accusatory.
The face of the Prince was impassive, his eyes alone gave away his astonishment. Had the man guessed the nature of that dispatch? "You speak wildly."
"I do not! Even while you have been instructing me in the way that I must instruct my priests, your soldiers have been knocking at the gates of all the temples of Mota. Wait! I have a message to you from the Lord Mota: His priests do not fear worldly power. You have not succeeded in arresting them, nor would you, did not the Lord Mota bid them to surrender. In thirty minutes, after the priests have cleansed themselves spiritually and girded themselves for the ordeal, each will surrender himself at the threshold of his temple. Until then, woe to the soldier who attempts to violate the House of Mota!"
"'At's telling 'em Chief! 'At's telling 'em! You mean for each temple priest to hold off thirty more minutes, then surrender -- is that right? And for them to be loaded for bear, power units, communicators, and all the latest gadgets. Acknowledge, if you can."
"In the groove, Jeff." He had to chance it four meaningless syllables to the Prince, but Jeff would understand.
"O. K., Chief. I don't know what you're up to, but we'll go along a thousand percent!"
The face of the Prince was a frozen mask. "Take him away."
For some minutes after Ardmore was gone the Serene One sat staring at the chessboard and pulling at his underlip.
They placed Ardmore in a room underground, a room with metal walls and massive locks on the door. Not content with that, he was hardly inside when he heard a soft hissing noise and saw a point at the edge of the door turn cherry red. Welding! They evidently intended to make sure that no possible human weakness of his guards could result in escape. He called the Citadel.
"Lord Mota, hear thy servant!"
"Yes, Chief."
"A wink is as good as a nod."
"Got you, Chief. You are still where you can be overheard. Slang it up. I'll get your drift!"
"The headman witch doctor hankers to chew the rag with the rest of the sky pilots."
"You want Circuit A?"
"Most bodaciously."
There was a brief pause, then Thomas answered. "O. K., Chief, you've got it. I'll stay cut in to interpret it
probably won't be necessary, since the boys have practiced this kind of double talk. Go ahead you've got five minutes, if they are to surrender on time."
Any cipher can be broken, any code can be compromised. But the most exact academic knowledge of a language gives no clue to its slang, its colloquial allusions, its half statements, over statements, and inverted meanings. Ardmore felt logically certain that the PanAsians had planted a microphone in his cell. Very well, since they were bound to listen to his end of the conversation, let them be confused and baled by it, uncertain whether he spoke in gibberish to his god, or had possibly lost his mind.
"Look, cherubs -- mamma wants baby to go to the nice man. It's all hunkydory as long as baby-bunting carries his nice new rattle. Yea, verily, rattle is the watchword -- you don't and they do. Deal this cold deck the way it's stacked and the chopstick laddies are stonkered and discombobulated. The stiff upper lip does it."
"Check me if I'm wrong, Chief. You want the priests to give themselves up, and to rattle the PanAsians by their apparent unconcern. You want them to carry it off the way you did, cool as a cucumber, and bold as brass. I also take it that you want them to hang on to their staffs, but not to use them unless you tell them to. Is that right?"
"Elementary, my dear Watson!"
"What happens after that?"
"No thirty."
"What's that? Oh, 'No thirty' -- more to come on this story; you'll tell us later. All right, Chief -- it's time!"
"Okey-dokey!"
Ardmore waited until he was reasonably certain that all the PanAsians not immediately concerned with guarding the prisoners would be asleep, or at least in their quarters. What he proposed to do would be effective fully only in the event that no one knew just what had happened. The chances were better at night.
He called Thomas by whistling a couple of bars of "Anchors Aweigh." He responded at once -- he had not gone off duty, but had remained at the pararadio, giving the prisoners an occasional fight talk and playing records of martial music. "Yes, Chief?"
"The time has come to take a powder. Allee-allee out's in free!"
"Jailbreak?"
"In the manner of the proverbial Arab -- the exact manner."
They had discussed this technique before; Thomas gave itemized instructions and then said, "Say when, Chief. "
"When!"
He could almost see Thomas nod. "Right -- oh! O. K., troops, get going!"
Ardmore stood up and stretched his cramped limbs. He walked over to one wall of his prison and stood so that the single light cast a shadow on the wall. That would be about right there! He set the controls of his staff for maximum range in the primary Ledbetter effect, checked to see that the frequency band covered the Mongolian race, and adjusted it to stun rather than kill. Then he turned on power.
A few moments later he turned it off, and again regarded his shadow on the wall. This required an entirely different setting, directional and with fine discrimination. He turned on the red ray of Dis to guide him in his work, completed his set-up, and again turned on power.
Quietly and without fuss, atoms of metal rearranged themselves and appeared as nitrogen, to mix harmlessly with the air. Where there had been a solid wall was now an opening the size and shape of ,a tall man dressed in priestly robes. He looked at it, and, as an after thought, he meticulously traced an ellipse over the head of the representation, an ellipse the size and shape of his halo. That done, he reset the controls of his staff to that he had used before, turned on power, and stepped through the opening. It was a close fit; he had to wriggle through sideways.
Outside it was necessary to step over the piled-up bodies of a dozen or more PanAsian soldiers. This was not the side of the welded-up entrance; he guessed that he would have found guards outside each and any of the four walls, probably floor and ceiling as well.
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.