Pratt made his way with caution. He managed to slide through the final fringes of the crowd and out into the open. A moment later he was standing at the main police barricade, erected at the edge of the highway. The uniformed cops gazed at him blankly; he wasn't known to them. One of them, a giant with a vast moon-like face, detached himself and came striding ominously over, his machine gun raised.

"Get over to the other side!" he yelled at Pratt. "Get off the highway!"

The police were stretching heavy white rope on both sides of the pavement, to keep the march confined. They wanted to be sure it went in the right direction; it was supposed to go where the weapons units waited.

"God damn you!" the big cop yelled. "I told you to get out of here! You want to get killed?"

"Where's McHaffie?" Pratt said.

"Who are you?"

Pratt located Police Major McHaffie, the officer in charge of the detail. Approaching him, he showed his identification. "All right," McHaffie muttered, preoccupied. He didn't know what Pratt's mission was, only that he was on a Security job. "Get up there on one of the trucks; that's where you'll get the best view. The stupid bastards are starting any minute."

McHaffie had picked a good place for the barricade. Once the marchers had gone past it toward the city, the trucks would cut through the rope and swing around, blocking the highway. Then, as the crowd streamed back, the police teams would sort through them. Caught between two police walls, Jones and his followers would be trapped like cattle. More trucks were waiting: to take the followers off to forced labor camps.

The barricade itself was formidable. He doubted if the mob—and it would be a mob by that time—could break it. Trucks, plus heavy guns, and maybe a line of tanks. He wasn't too familiar with that part. This would be the initial police attack: Jones dead, the policy-level followers rounded up. And then, all over the world, city by city, the rest would be netted. Over a period of days, perhaps weeks, the roundup would continue. Slowly, efficiently.

Reaching up to the truck, Pratt began to climb. Six or seven hands reached to help him; he sprawled awkwardly, clutching his rifle and struggling, until somebody helped him to his feet. He brushed himself off and found a place near the front. He wasn't the only one with a war-rifle; several flashed in the afternoon sunlight. As he stood his gun upright, nobody paid attention. They were all watching the marchers.

"This is a good location," he said to McHaffie, as the police major followed after him.

McHaffie eyed the rifle. "What's that you have there? An old A-5? I wish you guys had thrown them away." Obviously, he thought Pratt was a bellicose war veteran, nothing more. "We ought to have yanked the firing pins out."

"There're a lot of people down there," a sergeant observed uneasily.

"You think they'll get by us?" another asked nervously, a young kid. "They're crazy—they might do anything."

"I don't think so," McHaffie said vaguely, peering at the mob through his binoculars.

"They want to get killed," the sergeant said. "That's what they're out there for. They can see us—Jones must know we're going to close in on them. Can't he see the future? Isn't that his line?"

Warm wind smacked at them from the ruins and half-filled craters. In the distance, across the hazy sky, a row of transports moved slowly, inexorably. The men in the trucks were restless and irritable; they whacked their guns against the metal hull around them, spat over the edge, shaded their eyes against the bright sun and peered angrily at the gray wheel of marchers.

"It won't be long," McHaffie commented. The crowd was obediently forming behind the gray phalanx.

"How many do you figure are there?" Pratt asked.

"Thousands. Millions. I guess the big cheese is going to ride in his car while the others walk." McHaffie indicated a parked limousine. "One of his rich backers gave that to him."

"He's supposed to be out front," a reporter said, overhearing McHaffie. "According to the crap they put out, he'll be right up there marching at the head."

"I think he will," Pratt said.

"You know anything about him?" the reporter demanded, his puffy face slack and avid at once. He was a typical Berlin newspaper man, in baggy tweeds, a pipe in his mouth, cynical and aloof.

"No," Pratt said.

"Is it true Jones is an escaped con from the Bolivian forced labor camps?"

"I heard he used to be with a freak show," the sergeant said. "He's a mutant, one of those war-time sports."

Pratt said nothing. His head ached from the glare and the dust blown by the dry wind. He wished things would hurry.

"Look," the reporter said to McHaffie. "Let me ask you something. Those guys there. What is it, some sort of racket? What's the story on this thing?"

"Get going," McHaffie muttered.

"Isn't it a racket? What's Jones in it for? He's got a lot of rich backers—right? He's a minister or something. This is a cult—right? Rich people kick in money and a lot of swank clothes and cars and jewelry, he has all the babes he wants—right?"

Nobody answered.

Presently the reporter addressed himself to a tall thin cop, who stood pressed against the railing, his arms full of rocket-firing equipment. "Hey," the reporter said softly. "Is this really a Fedgov stunt? To whip up interest in colonization? They going to spring a big immigration deal? Let me in on it."

"Christ," the reporter muttered plaintively, "I'm just trying to understand this thing. There must be an angle... I'm trying to figure out what he's in it for."

A short, red-faced cop swarmed up onto the truck, carrying telephone lines. "I'm glad I'm up here," he panted to McHaffie. "That's going to be a mess when they hit the blocks in town."

The reporter put his hand on the man's shoulder. "Hey, friend," he said, "what the hell is all this? What are those loons in this for?"

Catching his breath, the red-faced cop paused, "It's not a racket."

"Then what are they after? Give me the word."

"If it was a racket we wouldn't have any trouble. We could buy them off."

"That's interesting." The reporter eyed him languidly. "You ever met this Jones?"

"No," the red-faced cop admitted. "But my wife shook hands with him, once." He added: "She's a member."

The reporter was incredulous. "No kidding?"

"She's probably down there marching,"

"Take off," McHaffie snapped at the red-faced policeman. "Report back to your unit."

The cop obediently pushed to the back of the truck and leaped down onto the highway.

The reporter scratched a few notes on a pad of paper and then put it away. He eyed Pratt's rifle curiously. "What's that you got there, Dad?" he asked.

Pratt said nothing. He was feeling worse each minute, as the sun glared above them. His mouth was dry and acid. The touch of an ancient malaria shivered through him, bringing its weakness and chills. It was always this way, before a kill.

"That's a wicked-looking hunk of metal," the reporter observed. "You going to blow some guy's head off with that?"

"Get out of here, you big-mouth bastard," the thin cop grated, "before he blows your ass off with it."

"Jesus," the reporter said, "You guys are sure touchy."

He edged toward the far side of the truck. "You're as bad as those loons down there."

Pratt wiped sweat from his upper lip and steadied the rifle against the side of the truck. The metal shone bright and hot in the furious heat. His eyes burned, and his legs were beginning to wobble. He wondered how long it would be before the gray started unwinding and flowing forward. Not long, probably.

"Let me use your glasses," he said to McHaffie.

"Don't drop them." McHaffie passed the binoculars over; his hands were shaking. "Christ, this thing is getting me. If anything goes wrong, I'll be in a labor camp along with them."