It
was, he admitted to himself, a most ludicrous-looking assemblage; one
of the most ludicrous things about it was the fact that it would have
inspired only pious awe in a Hulgun of the Fourth Level Proto-Aryan
Sector. About half of them were priests from the Transtemporal Mining
Corporation's temples; the other half were members of the Paratime
Police. All of them wore, in addition to their temple knives,
holstered sigma-ray needlers. Most of them carried 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.
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