Sixth Column

by Robert A. Heinlein

  “But, Chief—”

  “We are not going to risk both of us, not at this stage of the game. Now pipe down.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ardmore was called back to the communicator later that morning. The face of the headquarters communication watch officer peered out of the screen at him. “Oh—Major Ardmore, Salt Lake City is trying to reach you with a priority routing.”

  “Put them on.”

  The face gave way to that of the priest at Salt Lake City. “Chief,” he began, “we’ve got a most extr’ordinary prisoner. I’m of the opinion you’d better question him yourself.”

  “I’m short of time. Why?”

  “Well, he’s a PanAsian, but claims he is a white man and that you will know him. The funny thing about it is that he got past our screen. I thought that was impossible.”

  “So it is. Let me see him.”

  It was Downer, as Ardmore had begun to suspect. Ardmore introduced him to the local priest and assured that official that his screens had not failed him. “Now, Captain, out with it—”

  “Sir, I decided to come in and report to you in detail because things are coming to a head.”

  “I know it. Give me all the details you can.”

  “I will, sir. I wonder if you have any idea how much damage you’ve done the enemy already?—their morale is cracking up like rotten ice in a thaw. They act all nervous, uncertain of themselves. What happened?”

  Ardmore sketched out briefly the events of the past twenty-four hours, his own arrest, the arrest of the priests, the arrest of the entire cult of Mota, and the subsequent delivery. Downer nodded. “That explains it. I couldn’t really tell what had happened; they never tell a common soldier anything—but I could see them going to pieces, and I thought you had better know.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well—I guess I had better just tell you what I saw, and let you make your own inferences. The second battalion of the Dragon Regiment at Salt Lake City is under arrest. I heard a rumor that every officer in it had committed suicide. I suppose that is the outfit that let the local congregation escape, but I don’t know.”

  “Probably. Go ahead.”

  “All I know is what I saw. They were marched in about the middle of the morning with their banners reversed and confined to their barracks, with a heavy guard around the buildings. But that’s not all. It affects more than the one outfit under arrest. Chief, you know how an entire regiment will go to pieces if the colonel starts losing his grip?”

  “I do. Is that the way they act?”

  “Yes—at least the command stationed at Salt Lake City. I’m damned well certain that the big shot there is afraid of something he can’t understand, and his fear has infected his troops, right down to the ordinary soldiers. Suicides, lots of ’em, even among the common soldiers. A man will get moody for about a day, then sit down facing toward the Pacific and rip out his guts.

  “But here is the tip-off, the thing that proves that morale is bad all over the country. There has been a general order issued by the Prince Royal, in the name of the Heavenly Emperor, forbidding any more honorable suicides.”

  “What effect did that have?”

  “Too soon to tell—it just came out today. But you don’t appreciate what that means, Chief. You have to live among these people, as I have, to appreciate it. With the PanAsians, everything is face—everything. They care more for appearances than an American can possibly understand. To tell a man who has lost face that he can’t balance the books and get square with his ancestors by committing suicide is to take the heart right out of him. It jeopardizes his most precious possession.

  “You can count on it that the Prince Royal is scared, too, or he would never have resorted to any such measures. He must have lost an incredible number of his officers lately ever to have thought of such a thing.”

  “That is reassuring. Before this night is out, I think we will have damaged their morale at least as much more as we have already. So you think we’ve got them on the run?”

  “I didn’t say that, Major—don’t ever think so. These damned yellow baboons”—he spoke quite earnestly, evidently forgetting his own exact physical resemblance to the Asiatics—“are just about four times as deadly and dangerous in their present frames of mine as they were when they were cock o’ the walk. They are likely to run amuck with just a slight push and start slaughtering right and left—babies, women—indiscriminately!”

  “H-m-m. Any recommendations?”

  “Yes, Chief, I have. Hit ’em with everything you’ve got just as soon as possible, and before they start in on a general massacre. You’ve got ’em softened up now—sock it to ’em!—before they have time to think about the general population. Otherwise you’ll have a blood letting that will make the Collapse look like a tea party.

  “That’s the other reason I came in,” he added. “I didn’t want to find myself ordered out to butcher my own kind.”

  Downer’s report left Ardmore plenty to worry about. He conceded that Downer was probably right in his judgment of the workings of the Oriental mind. The thing that Downer warned against—retaliation against the civilian population—always had been the key to the whole problem—that was why the religion of Mota had been founded; because they dare not strike directly for fear of systematic retaliation against the helpless. Now—if Downer was a judge—in attacking indirectly, Ardmore had rendered an hysterical retaliation almost as probable.

  Should he call off Plan IV and attack today?

  No—it simply was not practicable. The priests had to have a few hours at least in which to organize the men of their flocks into guerrilla warriors. That being the case, one might as well go ahead with Plan IV and soften up the war lords still further. Once it was under way, the PanAsians would be much too busy to plan massacres.

  A small, neat scout car dropped from a great height and settled softly and noiselessly on the roof of the temple in the capital city of the Prince Royal. Ardmore stepped up to it as the wide door in its side opened and Wilkie climbed out. He saluted. “Howdy, Chief!”

  “H’lo, Bob. Right on time, I see—just midnight. Think you were spotted?”

  “I don’t think so; at least, no one turned a spot on us. And we cruised high and fast; this gravitic control is great stuff.” As they climbed in, Scheer gave his C.O. a brief nod accompanied by, “Evening, sir,” with his hands still on the controls. As soon as the safety belts were buckled he shot the car vertically into the air.

  “Orders, sir?”

  “Roof of the palace—and be careful.”

  Without lights, at great speed, with no power source the enemy could detect, the little car plummeted to the roof designated. Wilkie started to open the door. Ardmore checked him. “Look around first.”

  An Asiatic cruiser, on routine patrol over the residence of the vice-royal, changed course and stabbed out with a searchlight. The radar-guided beam settled on the scout car.

  “Can you hit him at this range?” inquired Ardmore, whispering unnecessarily.

  “Easiest thing in the world, Chief.” Cross hairs matched on the target; Wilkie depressed his thumb. Nothing seemed to happen, but the beam of the searchlight swept on past them.

  “Are you sure you hit him?” Ardmore inquired doubtfully.

  “Certain. That ship’ll go ahead on automatic control till her fuel gives out. But it’s a dead hand at the helm.”

  “O.K., Scheer, you take Wilkie’s place at the projector. Don’t let fly unless you are spotted. If we aren’t back in thirty minutes, return to the Citadel. Come on, Wilkie—now for a little hocus-pocus.”

  Scheer acknowledged the order, but it was evident from the way his powerful jaw muscles worked that he did not like it. Ardmore and Wilkie, each attired in the full regalia of a priest, moved out across the roof in search of a way down. Ardmore kept his staff set and projecting in the wave band to which Mongolians were sensitive, but at a power-level anesthetic rather than lethal in its effect. T
he entire palace had been radiated with a cone of these frequencies before they had landed, using the much more powerful projector mounted in the scout car. Presumably every Asiatic in the building was unconscious—Ardmore was not taking unnecessary chances.

  They found an access door to the roof, which saved them cutting a hole, and crept down a steep iron stairway intended only for janitors and repair men. Once inside, Ardmore had trouble orienting himself and feared that he would be forced to find a PanAsian, resuscitate him, and wring the location of the Prince’s private chambers out of him by most ungentle methods. But luck favored them; he happened on the right floor and correctly inferred the portal of the Prince’s apartment by the size and nature of the guard collapsed outside of it.

  The door was not locked; the Prince depended on a military watch being kept rather than keys and bolts—he had never turned a key in his life. They found him lying in his bed, a book fallen from his limp fingers. A personal attendant lay crumpled in each of the four corners of the spacious room.

  Wilkie eyed the Prince with interest. “So that’s his nibs. What do we do now, Major?”

  “You get on one side of the bed; I’ll get on the other. I want him to be forced to divide his attention two ways. And stand up close so that he will have to look up at you. I’ll talk all the business, but you throw in a remark or two every now and then to force him to split his attention.”

  “What sort of a remark?”

  “Just priestly mumbo-jumbo. Impressive and no real meaning. Can you do it?”

  “I think so—I used to sell magazine subscriptions.”

  “O.K. This guy is a tough nut—really tough. I am going to try to get at him with the two basic congenital fears common to everybody; fear of constriction and fear of falling. I could handle it with my staff but it will be simpler if you do it with yours. Do you think you can follow my motions and catch what I want done?”

  “Can you make it a little clearer than that?”

  Ardmore explained in detail, then added, “All right—let’s get busy. Take your place.” He turned on the four colored lights of his staff. Wilkie did likewise. Ardmore stepped across the room and switched out the lights of the room.

  When the PanAsian Prince Royal, Grandson of the Heavenly One and ruler in his name of the Imperial Western Realm, came to his senses, he saw standing over him in the darkness two impressive figures. The taller was garbed in robes of shimmering, milky luminescence. His turban, too, glowed with a soft white fire—a halo.

  The staff in his left hand streamed light from all four faces of its cubical capital—ruby, golden, emerald, and sapphire.

  The second figure was like the first, save that his robes glowed ruddy like iron on an anvil. The face of each was partially illuminated by the rays from their wands.

  The figure in shining white raised his right hand in a gesture not benign, but imperious. “We meet again, O unhappy Prince!”

  The Prince had been trained truly and well; fear was not natural to him. He started to sit up, but an impalpable force shoved against his chest and thrust him back against the bed. He started to speak.

  The air was sucked from his throat. “Be silent, child of iniquity! The Lord Mota speaks through me. You will listen in peace.”

  Wilkie judged it to be about time to divert the Asiatic’s attention. He intoned, “Great is the Lord Mota!”

  Ardmore continued, “Your hands are wet with the blood of innocence. There must be an end to it!”

  “Just is the Lord Mota!”

  “You have oppressed his people. You have left the land of your fathers, bringing with you fire and sword. You must return!”

  “Patient is the Lord Mota!”

  “But you have tried his patience,” agreed Ardmore. “Now he is angry with you. I bring you warning; see that you heed it!”

  “Merciful is the Lord Mota!”

  “Go back to the place whence you came—go back at once, taking with you all your people—and return not again!” Ardmore thrust out a hand and closed it slowly. “Heed not this warning—the breath will be crushed from your body!” The pressure across the chest of the Oriental increased intolerably, his eyes bulged out, he gasped for air.

  “Heed not this warning—you will be cast down from your high place!” The Prince felt himself suddenly become light; he was cast into the air, pressed hard against the high ceiling. Just as suddenly his support left him; he fell heavily back to the bed.

  “So speaks my Lord Mota!”

  “Wise is the man who heeds him!” Wilkie was running short of choruses.

  Ardmore was ready to conclude. His eye swept around the room and noted something he had seen before—the Prince’s ubiquitous chess table. It was set up by the head of the bed, as if the Prince amused himself with it on sleepless nights. Apparently the man set much store by the game. Ardmore added a postscript. “My Lord Mota is done—but heed the advice of an old man: men and women are not pieces in a game!” An invisible hand swept the costly, beautiful chessmen to the floor. In spite of his rough handling, the Prince had sufficient spirit left in him to glare.

  “And now my Lord Shaam bids you sleep.” The green light flared up to greater brilliance; the Prince went limp.

  “Whew!” sighed Ardmore. “I’m glad that’s over. Nice cooperation, Wilkie—I was never cut out to be an actor.” He hoisted up one side of his robes and dug a package of cigarettes out of his pants pocket. “Better have one,” he offered. “We’ve got a really dirty job ahead of us.”

  “Thanks,” said Wilkie, accepting the offer. “Look, Chief—is it really necessary to kill everybody here? I don’t relish it.”

  “Don’t get chicken, son,” admonished Ardmore with an edge in his voice. “This is war—and war is no joke. There is no such thing as humane war. This is a military fortress we are in; it is necessary to our plans that it be reduced completely. We couldn’t do it from the air because the plan requires keeping the Prince alive.”

  “Why wouldn’t it do just as well to leave them unconscious?”

  “You argue too much. Part of the disorganization plan is to leave the Prince still alive and in command, but cut off from all his usual assistants. That will create a turmoil of inefficiency much greater than if we had simply killed him and let their command devolve to their number-two man. You know that. Get on with your job.”

  With the lethal ray from their staffs turned to maximum power, they swept the walls and floor and ceiling, carrying death to Asiatics for hundreds of feet—through rock and metal, plaster and wood. Wilkie did his job with white-lipped efficiency.

  Five minutes later they were carving the stratosphere for home—the Citadel.

  Eleven other scout cars were hurrying through the night. In Cincinnati, in Chicago, in Dallas, in major cities across the breadth of the continent they dove out of the darkness, silencing opposition where they found it, and landed little squads of intent and resolute men. In they went, past sleeping guards, and dragged out local senior officials of the PanAsians—provincial governors, military commanders, the men on horseback. They dumped each unconscious kidnapped Oriental on the roof of the local temple of Mota, there to be received and dragged down below by the arms of a robed and bearded priest.

  Then to the next city to repeat it again, as long as the night lasted.

  Chapter Eleven

  Calhoun buttonholed Ardmore almost as soon as he was back in the Citadel. “Major Ardmore,” he announced, clearing his throat, “I have waited up to discuss a matter of import with you.”

  This man, Ardmore thought, can pick the damnedest times for a conference. “Yes?”

  “I believe you expect a rapid culmination of events?”

  “Things are coming to a head, yes.”

  “I presume the issue will be decided very presently. I have not been able to get the details I want from your man Thomas—he is not very cooperative; I fail to see why you have thrust him up to the position of speaking for you in your absence—but that is beside
the point,” Calhoun conceded with a magnanimous gesture. “What I wanted to say is this: Have you given any thought to the form of government after we drive out the Asiatic invader?”

  What the devil was the man getting at? “Not particularly—why should I? Of course, there will have to be a sort of provisional interim period, military government of sorts, while we locate all the old officials left alive and get them back on the job and arrange for a national election. But that ought not to be too hard—we’ll have the local priests to work through.”

  Calhoun’s eyebrows shot up. “Do you really mean to tell me, my dear man, that you are seriously contemplating returning to the outmoded inefficiencies of elections and all that sort of thing?”

  Ardmore stared at him. “What else are you suggesting?”

  “It seems obvious. We have here a unique opportunity to break with the stupidities of the past and substitute a truly scientific rule, headed by a man chosen for his intelligence and scientific training rather than for his skill in catering to the prejudices of the mob.”

  “Dictatorship, eh? And where would I find such a man?” Ardmore’s voice was disarmingly, dangerously gentle.

  Calhoun did not speak, but indicated by the slightest of smug self-deprecatory gestures that Ardmore would not have far to look to find the right man.

  Ardmore chose not to notice Calhoun’s implied willingness to serve. “Never mind,” he said, and his voice was no longer gentle, but sharp. “Colonel Calhoun, I dislike to have to remind you of your duty—but understand this: you and I are military men. It is not the business of military men to monkey with politics. You and I hold our commissions by grace of a constitution, and our sole duty is to that constitution. If the people of the United States want to streamline their government, they will let us know!

  “In the meantime, you have military duties, and so do I. Go ahead with yours.”

  Calhoun seemed about to burst into speech. Ardmore cut him short. “That is all. Carry out your orders, sir!”