Circuit A was a general broadcast to every temple in the country. "Any news from Captain Downer?"
"One just this moment came in, sir; I've just sent it to your office," the inner voice informed him.
"So? Yes, I see." Ardmore stepped to his desk, flipped a switch which turned off a shining red transparency reading Priority, and tore a sheet of paper from the facsimile recorder.
"Tell the Chief," the message ran, "that something is about to bust. I can't find out what it is, but all the brasshats are looking very cocky. Watch everything and be careful." That was all, and that little possibly garbled in word of mouth relay.
Ardmore frowned and pursed his mouth, then signaled his orderly. "Send for Mr. Mitsui."
When Mitsui came in, Ardmore handed him the message. "I suppose you've heard that I am to be arrested?"
"It's all over the place," Mitsui acknowledged soberly, and handed the message back.
"Frank, if you were Prince Royal, what would you be trying to accomplish by arresting me?"
"Chief," protested Mitsui, distress in his eyes, "you act as if I were one of those ... those murdering --"
"Sorry -- but I still want your advice."
"Well -- I guess I'd be intending to put you on ice, then clamp down on your church."
"Anything else?"
"I don't know. I don't guess I'd be doing it unless I was fairly sure that I had some .way to get around your protections."
"No, I suppose so." He spoke again to the air. "Communication office, priority for Circuit A."
"Direct, or relay?"
"You send it out. I want every priest to return to his temple, if he is now out of it, and I want him to do it fast. Priority, urgent, acknowledge and report." He turned back to those with him.
"Now for a bite to eat, and I'll go. Our yellow friend upstairs ought to be about done to a turn by then. Anything else we should take up before I leave?"
Ardmore entered the main hall of the temple from the door in the rear of the altar. His approach to the great doors, now standing open, was a stately progress. He knew that the Asiatic commander could see him coming; he covered the two hundred yards with leisured dignity, attended by a throng of servers clad in robes of red, of green, of blue, and golden. His own vestments were immaculate white. His attendants fanned out as they neared the great archway; he marched out and up to the fuming Asiatic alone. "Your master wishes to see me?"
The PanAsian had difficulty in composing himself sufficiently to speak in English. Finally he managed to get out, "You were ordered to report to me. How dare you --"
Ardmore cut him short. "Does your master wish to see me?"
"Decidedly! Why didn't you --"
"Then you may escort me to him." He moved on past the officer and marched down the steps, giving the Asiatics the alternatives of running to catch up with him, or trailing after. The commander of the cruiser obeyed his first impulse to hurry, nearly fell on the broad steps, and concluded by bringing up ignominiously in the rear, his guard attending him.
Ardmore had been in the city chosen by the Prince Royal as his capital before, but not since the Asiatics had moved in. When they debarked on the municipal landing platform he looked about him with concealed eagerness to see what changes had been made. The skyways seemed to be running -- probably because of the much higher percentage of Asiatic population here. Otherwise there was little apparent change. The dome of the State capitol was visible away to the right; he knew it to be the palace of the
warlord. They had done something to its exterior; he could not put his finger on the change but it no longer looked like Western architecture.
He was too busy for the next few minutes to look at the city. His guard, now caught up with him and surrounding him, marched him to the escalator and down into the burrows of the city. They passed through many doors, each with its guard of soldiers. Each guard presented arms to Ardmore's captor as the party passed. Ardmore solemnly returned each, salute with a gesture of benediction, acting as if the salute had been intended for him and him alone. His custodian was indignant but helpless; it soon developed into a race to see which could acknowledge a salute first. The commander won, but at the cost of saluting his startled juniors first.
Ardmore took advantage of a long unbroken passageway to check his communications. "Great Lord Mota," he said, "dost thou hear thy servant?" The commander glanced at him, but said nothing.
The muffled inner voice answered at once, "Got you, Chief. You are hooked in through the temple in the capitol." It was Thomas' voice.
"The Lord Mota speaks, the servant hears. Truly it is written that little pitchers have long ears.'
"You mean the monkeys can overhear you?"
"Yea, verily, now and forever. The Lord Mota will understand igpay atinlay?"
"Sure, Chief -- pig latin. Take it slow if you can."
"At-thay is oodgay. Ore-may aterlay." Satisfied, he desisted. Perhaps the PanAsians had a mike and a recorder on him even now. He hoped so, for he thought it would give them a useless headache. A man has to grow up in a language to be able to understand it scrambled.
The Prince Royal had been impelled by curiosity as much as by concern when he ordered the apprehension of the High Priest of Mota. It was true that affairs were not entirely to his liking, but he felt that his advisers were hysterical old women. When had a slave religion proved anything but an aid to the conqueror? Slaves needed a wailing wall; they went into their temples, prayed to their gods to deliver them from oppression, and came out to work in the fields and factories, relaxed and made harmless by the emotional catharsis of prayer.
"But," one of his advisers had pointed out, "it is always assumed that the gods do nothing to answer those prayers."
That was true; no one expected a god to climb down off his pedestal and actually perform. "What, if anything, has this god Mota done? Has anyone seen him?"
"No, Serene One, but --"
"Then what has he done?"
"It is difficult to say. It is impossible to enter their temples --"
"Did I not give orders not to disturb the slaves in their worship?" The Prince's tones were perilously sweet.
"True. Serene One, true," he was hastily assured, "nor have they been, but your secret police have been totally unable to enter in order to check up for you, no matter how cleverly they were disguised."
"So? Perhaps they were clumsy. What stopped them?"
The adviser shook his head. "That is the point, Serene One. None can remember what happened."
"What is that you say? -- but that is ridiculous. Fetch me one to question."
The adviser spread his hands. "I regret, sire --"
"So? Of course, of course -- peace be to their spirits." He smoothed an embroidered silken panel that streamed down his chest. While he thought, his eye was caught by ornately and amusingly carved chessmen set up on a table at his elbow. Idly he tried a pawn in a different square. No, that was not the solution; white to move and checkmate in four moves -- that took five. He turned back. "It might be well to tax them."
"We have already tried --"
"Without my permission?" The Prince's voice was gentler than before. Sweat showed on the face of the other.
"If it were an error, Serene One, we wished the error to be ours."
"You think me capable of error?" The Prince was the author of the standard text on the administration of subject races, written while a young provincial governor in India. "Very well, we will pass it. You taxed them, heavily I presume -- what then?"