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

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!"

Calhoun turned abruptly and left.

Ardmore called his Chief of Intelligence to him. "Thomas," he said, "I want a close, but discreet, check kept on Colonel Calhoun's movements."

"Yes, sir."

"The last of the scout cars are in, sir."

"Good. How does the tally stand now?" Ardmore asked.

"Just a moment, sir. It was running about six raids to a ship -- with this last one that makes a total of ... uh ... nine and two makes eleven-seventy-one prisoners in sixty-eight raids. Some of them doubled up...

"Any casualties?"

"Only to the PanAsians --"

"Damn it that's what I meant! No, I mean to our men, of course."

"None, Major. One man got a broken arm when he fell down a staircase in the dark."

"I guess we can stand that. We should get some reports on the local demonstrations -- at least from the East coast cities -- before long. Let me know."

"I will. "

"Would you mind telling my orderly to step in as you leave? I want to send for some caffeine tablets, better have one yourself; this is going to be a big day."

"A good notion, Major." The communications aide went out.

In sixty-eight cities throughout the land, preparations were in progress for the demonstrations that constituted Phase 2 of Disorganization Plan IV. The priest of the temple in Oklahoma City had delegated part of his local task to two men, Patrick Minkowski, taxi driver, and John W. (Jack) Smyth, retail merchant. They were engaged in fitting leg irons to the ankles of the Voice of the Hand, PanAsian administrator of Oklahoma City. The limp, naked body of the Oriental lay on a long table in a workshop down under the temple.

"There," announced Minkowski, "that's the best job of riveting I can do without heating tools. It'll take him a while to get it off, anyway. Where's that stencil?"

"By your elbow. Captain Isaacs said he'd weld those joints with his staff after we finished; I wouldn't worry about them. Say, it seems odd to call the priest Captain Isaacs, doesn't it? Do you think we're really in the army -- legally, I mean?"

"I wouldn't know about that -- and as long as it gives me a chance to take a crack at those flat-faced apes, I don't care. I suppose we are, though -- if you admit that Isaacs is an army officer, I guess he can take recruits. Look -- do we put this stencil on his back or on his stomach?"

"I'd say to put it on both sides. It does seem funny, though, about this army business, I mean. One day you're going to church; the next you're told it's a military outfit, and they swear you in."

"Personally, I like it," commented Minkowski. "Sergeant Minkowski -- it sounds good. They wouldn't take me before on account o' my heart. As for the church part, I never took any stock in this great God Mota business, anyhow; I came for the free food and the chance to breathe in peace." He removed the stencil from the back of the Asiatic; Smyth commenced filling in the traced design of an ideograph with quick-drying indelible paint. "I wonder what that heathen writing means?"

"Didn't you hear?" asked Smyth, and told him.

A delighted grin came over Minkowski's face. "Well, I'll be damned," he said. "If anybody called me that, it wouldn't do him no good to smile when he said it. You wouldn't kid me?"

"No, indeed. I was in the communications office when they were getting the design from the Mother Temple -- I mean general headquarters. Here's another funny thing, too. I saw the chap in the screen who was passing out the design, and he was Asiatic as this monkey" -- Smyth indicated the unconscious voice of the Hand -- "but they called him Captain Downer and treated him like one of us. What do you make of that?"

"Couldn't say. He must be on our side, or else he wouldn't be loose in headquarters. What'll we do with the rest of the paint?"

Between them they found something to do with it, which Captain Isaacs noticed at once when he came in to see how they were progressing. He suppressed a smile. "I see you have elaborated on your instructions a bit," he commented, trying to keep his voice soberly official.

"It seemed a pity to waste the paint," Minkowski explained ingenuously. "Besides, he looked so naked the way he was."

"That's a matter of opinion. Personally, I would say that he looks nakeder now. We'll drop the point; hurry up and get his head shaved. I want to leave any time now."

Minkowski and Smyth waited at the door of the temple five minutes later, the Voice of the Hand rolled in a blanket on the floor between them. They saw a sleek duocycle station wagon come shooting up to the curb in front of the temple and brake to a sudden stop. Its bell sounded, and Captain Isaacs' face appeared in the window of the driver's compartment. Minkowski threw down the butt of a cigarette and grabbed the shoulders of the muffled figure at their feet; Smyth took the legs and they trotted clumsily and heavily out to the car.