ndered--the voice of Stranor
Sleth, speaking into a midget radio tuned to the loud-speaker inside
the idol. "_Where is the blasphemer and desecrator, Kurchuk?_"

"There's Labdurg, in the red tunic, beside the throne," Tammand Drav
whispered. "And that's Ghromdur, the Muz-Azin high priest, beside
him."

Verkan Vall nodded, keeping his eyes on the group on the platform.
Ghromdur, the high priest of Muz-Azin, was edging backward and
reaching under his robe. At the same time, an officer shouted an
order, and the Chuldun archers drew arrows from their quivers and
fitted them to their bowstrings. Immediately, the ultrasonic
paralyzers of the advancing paratimers went into action, and the
mercenaries began dropping.

"_Lay down your weapons, fools!_" the amplified voice boomed at them.
"_Lay down your weapons or you shall surely die! Who are you,
miserable wretches, to draw bows against Me?_"

[Illustration:]

At first a few, then all of them, the Chulduns lowered or dropped
their weapons and began edging away to the sides. At the center, in
front of the throne, most of them had been knocked out. Verkan Vall
was still watching the Muz-Azin high priest intently; as Ghromdur
raised his arm, there was a flash and a puff of smoke from the front
of Yat-Zar--the paint over the collapsed nickel was burned off, but
otherwise the idol was undamaged. Verkan Vall swung up his needler and
rayed Ghromdur dead; as the man in the green-faced black robes fell, a
blaster clattered on the stone platform.

"_Is that your puny best, Muz-Azin?_" the booming voice demanded.
"_Where is your high priest now?_"

"Horv; face Yat-Zar toward Muz-Azin," Verkan Vall said over his
shoulder, drawing his blaster with his left hand. Like all First Level
people, he was ambidextrous, although, like all paratimers, he
habitually concealed the fact while outtime. As the levitated idol
swung slowly to look down upon its enemy on the built-up cart, Verkan
Vall aimed the blaster and squeezed.

[Illustration:]

In a spot less than a millimeter in diameter on the crocodile idol's
side, a certain number of neutrons in the atomic structure of the
stone from which it was carved broke apart, becoming, in effect, atoms
of hydrogen. With a flash and a bang, the idol burst and vanished.
Yat-Zar gave a dirty laugh and turned his back on the cart, which was
now burning fiercely facing King Kurchuk again.

"Get your hands up, all of you!" Verkan Vall shouted, in th