No one answered. "Very well, bring it up later if you think of one. It seems to me that we must necessarily work by misdirection. If we can't fight the enemy directly at this time, we must fool 'em until we can."
"I see," agreed Dr. Brooks, "the bull wears himself out on the cape and never sees the sword."
"Exactly. Exactly. I only wish it were as easy as that. Now do any of you have any ideas as to how we can use what we've got without letting them know who we are, where we are, or how many we are? And now I'm going to take time out for a cigarette while you think about it."
Presently, he added, "You might bear in mind that we have two real advantages: the enemy apparently has not the slightest idea that we even exist, and our weapons are strange to them, even mysterious. Wilkie, didn't you compare the Ledbetter effect to magic?"
"I should hope to shout, Chief! It's safe to say that, aside from the instruments in our laboratories, there just isn't any way in existence to detect the forces we are working with now. You don't even know they're there. It's like trying to hear radio with your bare ears."
"That's what I mean. Mysterious. Like the Indians when they first met up with the white man's fire arms, they died and they didn't know why. Think about it. I'll shut up and let you."
Graham produced the first suggestion. "Major?"
"Yes?"
"Why couldn't we kidnap 'em?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well, your idea is to throw a scare into 'em, isn't it? How about a surprise raiding party, using the Ledbetter effect. We could go in one of the scout cars at night and pick out some really big shot, maybe the prince royal himself. We knock out everybody we come in contact with the projectors, and we walk right in and snatch him."
"Any opinions about that, gentlemen?" Ardmore said, reserving his own.
"It seems to have something to it," commented Brooks. "I would suggest that the projectors be set to render unconscious for a number of hours rather than to kill. It seems to me that the psychological effect would be heightened if they simply awoke and found their big man gone. One has no recollection of what has happened under such circumstances, as Wilkie and Mitsui can testify."
"Why stop at the prince royal?" Wilkie wanted to know. "We could set up four raiding parties, two to a car, and make maybe twelve raids in a single night. That way we could knock over enough of their number-one men to really cause some disorganization."
"That seems like a good idea," Ardmore agreed. "We may not be able to pull off these raids more than once. If we could do enough damage right at the top in one blow, we might both demoralize them and set off a general uprising. What's the matter, Mitsui?"
He had noticed the Oriental looking unhappy as the plan was developed. Mitsui spoke reluctantly, "It will not work, I am afraid."
"You mean we can't kidnap them that way? Do you know something we don't about their guard methods?"
"No, no. With a force that reaches through walls and knocks a man down before he knows you are there I believe you can capture them, all right: But the results will not be as you foresee them."
"Why not?"
"Because you will gain no advantage. They will not assume that you are holding their chief men as prisoners; they will assume that each one has committed suicide. The results will be horrible."
It was purely a psychological point, with room for difference of opinion. But the white men could not believe that the PanAsians would dare to retaliate if it were made unmistakably plain to them that their sacred leaders were not dead, but at the mercy of captors. Besides, it was a plan that offered immediate action, which they were spoiling for. Ardmore finally agreed to its adoption for want of something better, although he had a feeling of misgiving which he suppressed.
For the next few days all effort was bent toward preparing the scout cars for the projected task. Scheer performed Herculean mechanical jobs, working eighteen and twenty hours a day, with the others working joyfully under his supervision. Calhoun even came off his high horse and agreed to take part in the raid, although he did not help with the "menial" work. Thomas went out on a quick scouting trip and made certain of the location of twelve well-scattered PanAsian seats of government.
In the buoyancy of spirit which resulted from a plan of campaign, any plan of campaign, Ardmore failed to remember his own decision that what was required was a sixth column, an underground, or at least, unsuspected organization which would demoralize the enemy from within. This present plan was not such a one, but an essentially military plan. He began to think of himself as, if not Napoleon, at least as a modern Swamp Rat, or Sandino, striking through the night at the professional soldiers and fading away.
But Mitsui was right.
The television receiver was used regularly, with full recording, to pick up anything that the overlords had to broadcast to their slaves. It had become something of a custom to meet in the common room at eight in the evening to listen to the regular broadcast in which new orders were announced to the population. Ardmore encouraged it; the "hate session" it inspired was, he believed, good for morale.
Two nights before the projected raid they were gathered as usual. The ugly, broad face of the usual propaganda artist was quickly replaced by another and older PanAsian whom he introduced as the "heavenly custodian of peace and order." The older man came quickly to the point. The American servants of a provincial government had committed the hideous sin of rebelling against their wise rulers and had captured the sacred person of the governor and held him prisoner in his own palace. The soldiers of the heavenly emperor had brushed aside the insane profaners in the course of which the governor had most regrettably gone to his ancestors.
A period of mourning was announced, commencing at once, which would be inaugurated by permitting the people of the province to expiate the sins of their cousins. The television scene cut from the room from which he spoke.
It came to rest on great masses of humanity, men, women, children, huddled, jammed, behind barbed wire. The pick-up came down close enough to permit the personnel of the Citadel to see the blind misery on the faces of the crowd, the wept-out children, the mothers carrying babies, the helpless fathers.
They did not have to watch those faces long. The pick-up panned over the packed mob, acre on acre of helpless human animals, then returned to a steady close-up of one section.
They used the epileptigenic ray on them. Now they no longer resembled anything human. It was, instead, as if tens of thousands of monstrous chickens had had their necks wrung all at once and had been thrown into the same pen to jerk out their death spasms. Bodies bounded into the air in bone-breaking, spine-smashing fits. Mothers threw their infants from them, or crushed them in uncontrollable, viselike squeeze.
The scene cut back to the placid face of the Asiatic dignitary. He announced with what seemed to be regret in his voice that penance for sins was not sufficient, it was necessary also to be educational, in this case to the extent of one in every thousand.
Ardmore did a quick calculation in his head. A hundred fifty thousand people! It was unbelievable.
But it was soon believed. The pick-up cut again, this time to a residential street in an American city. It followed a squad of PanAsian soldiers into the living room of a family. They were gathered about a television receiver, plainly stunned by what they had just seen. The mother was huddling a young girl child to her shoulder, trying to quiet her hysteria. They seemed stupefied, rather than frightened, when the soldiers burst into their home. The father produced his card without argument; the squad leader compared it with a list, and the soldiers attended to him.