lice weapons, but they were unreliable. The same
dose that would keep one man out for an hour would paralyze another
for no more than ten or fifteen minutes. "And be sure none of them are
playing 'possum."

He went back through the door under the plinth, glancing up at the
decorated wooden screen and wondering how much work it would take to
move the new Yat-Zar in from the conveyers. The five priests and the
archer-captain were still unconscious; one of the policemen was
searching them.

"Here's the sort of weapons these priests carry," he said, holding up
a short iron mace with a spiked head. "Carry them on their belts." He
tossed it on the table, and began searching another knocked-out
hierophant. "Like this--_Hey!_ Look at this, will you!"

He drew his hand from under the left side of the senseless man's robe
and held up a sigma-ray needler. Verkan Vall looked at it and nodded
grimly.

"Had it in a regular shoulder holster," the policeman said, handing
the weapon across the table. "What do you think?"

"Find anything else funny on him?"

"Wait a minute." The policeman pulled open the robe and began
stripping the priest of Muz-Azin; Verkan Vall came around the table to
help. There was nothing else of a suspicious nature.

"Could have got it from one of the prisoners, but I don't like the
familiar way he's wearing that holster," Verkan Vall said. "Has the
conveyer gone back, yet?" When the policeman nodded, he continued:
"When it returns, take him to the First Level. I hope they bring up
the sleep-drug with the next load. When you get him back, take him to
Dhergabar by strato-rocket immediately, and make sure he gets back
alive. I want him questioned under narco-hypnosis by a regular
Paratime Commission psycho-technician, in the presence of Chief Tortha
Karf and some responsible Commission official. This is going to be hot
stuff."

Within an hour, the whole force was assembled in the temple. The
wooden screen had presented no problem--it slid easily to one
side--and the big idol floated on antigravity in the middle of the
temple. Verkan Vall was looking anxiously at his watch.

"It's about two hours to sunset," he said, to Stranor Sleth. "But as
you pointed out, these Hulguns aren't astronomers, and it's a bit
cloudy. I wish Crannar Jurth would call in with something definite."

Another twenty minutes passed. Then the man at the radio came out into
the temple.

"O. K.!" he called. "The man at Crannar Jur