arried ultrasonic
paralyzers, eighteen-inch batonlike things with bulbous ends. Most of
the Paratime Police and a few of the priests also carried either
heat-ray pistols or neutron-disruption blasters; Verkan Vall wore one
of the latter in a left-hand belt holster.

The Paratime Police were lined up separately for inspection, and
Stranor Sleth, Tammand Drav of the Zurb temple, and several other high
priests were checking the authenticity of their disguises. A little
apart from the others, a Paratime Policeman, in high priest's robes
and beard, had a square box slung in front of him; he was fiddling
with knobs and buttons on it, practicing. A big idol of Yat-Zar, on
antigravity, was floating slowly about the room in obedience to its
remote controls, rising and lowering, turning about and pirouetting
gracefully.

"Hey, Vall!" he called to his superior. "How's this?"

The idol rose about five feet, turned slowly in a half-circle, moved
to the right a little, and then settled slowly toward the floor.

"Fine, fine, Horv," Verkan Vall told him, "but don't set it down on
anything, or turn off the antigravity. There's enough collapsed
nickel-plating on that thing to sink it a yard in soft ground."

"I don't know what the idea of that was," Brannad Klav, standing
beside him, said. "Understand, I'm not criticizing. I haven't any
right to, under the circumstances. But it seems to me that armoring
that thing in collapsed nickel was an unnecessary precaution."

"Maybe it was," Verkan Vall agreed. "I sincerely hope so. But we can't
take any chances. This operation has to be absolutely right. Ready,
Tammand? All right; first detail into the conveyer."

He turned and strode toward a big dome of fine metallic mesh, thirty
feet high and sixty in diameter, at the other end of the room. Tammand
Drav, and his ten paratimer priests, and Brannad Klav, and ten
Paratime Police, followed him in. One of the latter slid shut the door
and locked it; Verkan Vall went to the control desk, at the center of
the dome, and picked up a two-foot globe of the same fine metallic
mesh, opening it and making some adjustments inside, then attaching an
electric cord and closing it. He laid the globe on the floor near the
desk and picked up the hand battery at the other end of the attached
cord.

"Not taking any chances at all, are you?" Brannad Klav asked, watching
this operation with interest.

"I never do, unnecessarily. There are too many necessary