Robert Heinlein: Sixth Column

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.

The voice changed to the PanAsian tongue. Ardmore could not understand the words, but he knew the general line it would take. Downer was telling the war lords that vengeance was upon them, and that any who wished to save their yellow skins would be wise to flee at once. He was telling them that, but with a great deal more emphasis and attention to detail and with an acute knowledge of their psychological weaknesses.

The gross and horrifying pseudo-creature stopped in the park before the palace, and, leaning over, touched a massive finger to a fleeing Asiatic. The man disappeared. He straightened up and again addressed the world in PanAsian -- but the square no longer contained PanAsians.

The fighting continued sporadically for hours, but it was no longer a battle; it was more in the nature of vermin extermination. Some of the Orientals surrendered; more died by their own hand; most died purposefully at the hands of their late serfs. A consolidated report from Thomas to Ardmore concerning the degree of progress in mopping up throughout the country was interrupted by the communications officer. "Urgent call from the priest in the capital city, sir."

"Put him on."

A second voice continued, "Major Ardmore?"

"Yes. Go ahead."

"We have captured the Prince Royal --"

"The hell you say!"

"Yes, sir. I request your permission to execute him."

"What was that, sir?"

"No! You heard me. I'll see him at your headquarters. Mind you don't let anything happen to him!"

Ardmore took time to shave off his beard and to change into uniform before he had the Prince Royal brought before him. When at last the PanAsian ruler stood before him he looked up and said without ceremony, "Any of your people I can save will be loaded up and shipped back where they came from."

"You are gracious."

"I suppose you know by now that you were tricked, hoaxed, by science that your culture can't match. You could have wiped us out any time, almost up to the last."

The Oriental remained impassive. Ardmore hoped fervently that the calm was superficial. He continued, "What I said about your people does not apply to you. I shall hold you as a common criminal."

The Prince's brows shot up. "For making war?"

"No -- you might argue your way out of that. For the mass murder you ordered in the territory of the United States -- your 'educational' lesson. You will be tried by a jury, like any other common criminal, and, I strongly suspect hanged by the neck until you are dead! "That's all. Take him away."

"One moment, please."

"What is it?"

"You recall the chess problem you saw in my palace?"

"What of it?"

"Could you give me the four-move solution?"

"Oh, that." Ardmore laughed heartily. "You'll believe anything, won't you? I had no solution; I was simply bluffing."

It was clear for an instant that something at last had cracked the Prince's cold self-control.

He never came to trial. They found him the next morning, his head collapsed across the chess-board he had asked for.