Some of them were going to make it inside the temple. The original band of fighters was now midway up the incline, fighting on the second terrace. The temple was on raised ground approached by tiers of broad steps and wide terraces with recessed lights set in them. The temple was of gleaming white marble, with black marble floors along a colonnade that ran around the entire structure. The columns were polished, snow white, and completely unadorned. It had been designed by Straton-Rubichek, and a replica of it was on display in the Museum of Modern Art. It was very beautiful. The mortar picked off another light. Suddenly appearing between the columns of the colonnade were figures, each holding a massive candle, girls, women, children. They came out of the temple singing, the same hymn that had so startled the short hairs earlier. There were hundreds of the figures, and now Blake could see that most of them were teen-aged girls; all were dressed in long white robes. The scene became a tableau, and even the mortar was quieted.
“The crazy fools!” Blake muttered, watching the descending figures. He raised binoculars and studied them; all seemed unaware of the fighting, unaware of the hordes of maddened people on the road and lurking behind bushes and trees. They sang triumphantly, looking neither to right nor left and the breeze hardly stirred the flames of the candles they carried. Each face was lighted; and all of the faces appeared entranced. Suddenly Blake gasped.
“Lisa!”
He knew almost immediately that it couldn’t be Lisa. It was Lisa as he remembered her from years ago. He was looking at Lorna. He kept the binoculars on her as she went down the steps to stop on the bottom tier. One of the damaged lights came” on again. There was frenzy among the mob not yet on the grounds. They could hear the singing and were enraged beyond endurance by it. They shoved harder and some of these in the front were knocked down and trampled.
The mortar came to life again. It was a very good shot, not hitting any of the choir members, but knocking them down by the shock in spite of that. The others continued to stand unmoving, singing.
Then the band of attackers broke through the long hairs defending the temple and raced up the steps, knocking the girls out of their way as they went. Most of the short hairs fell on the steps, not shot, not hit by anything that Blake could see. A few others made it to the top and vanished inside. Blake had grown more and more tense since the choir had appeared, and now he found himself starting the engine of his copter and leaving the branch it had rested on to hover free of the tree. He couldn’t leave Lorna standing down there unprotected like a somnambulist.
Among the invaders there must have been some who were familiar with the temple interior. In a very short time the lights went out and the area was in total darkness relieved only by the candles of the choir, and these now seemed pitiably weak. The mob coming in by road swelled and swept over those on the ground as if released by magic from magic.
Blake swooped down also. He aimed toward Lorna. At the same moment he saw the National Guard aircraft coming in finally. The fighting at the temple had increased in intensity, there were hundreds or perhaps thousands from each side engaged in hand to hand battle now, and the choir was being swept aside, their candles smashed. Blake landed left of the temple, two hundred yards from Lorna. There was very little activity here; most of it was at the front where the temple faced the road, and at the side where the attackers had launched the flanking move. The lights came on suddenly, and went off again. There was a momentary lull in the fighting when they came on. The tempo picked up as soon as darkness returned. Blake pushed and fought his way through fighting men and women, indiscriminately hitting out, or using his own stun gun on them. He finally got to the steps where he had last seen Lorna. She was not there. Her candle was flattened, as if by a heavy boot. Blake searched the grass and bushes for her and he saw a team of men setting up a portable laser, aiming it at the columns. They were going to cut through them, collapse the roof of the temple. He yelled for Lorna. He had worked his way to the top of the incline, looking at white-robed bodies, alive and dead, that littered the stairs all the way up. There were some of them going inside the temple at that moment and he raced for the group and spun the last one around.
“Lorna? Where is she?”
A glassy-eyed pre-adolescent pointed wordlessly, wrenched away from him and entered the temple.
Blake ran inside and yanked the arm of a long-haired girl. She turned and he breathed in relief. “Come on! I’m getting you out of here!”
She shook her head, tried to pull free, and he clipped her once gently at the side of her neck. He caught her when she fell, swung her over his shoulder, and headed for the door through which he had entered. It was crowded now with short hairs. They tried to snatch Lorna from him, hands yanking at her hair, and her robes. He turned and ran to his left. As he ran through the temple the sounds of battle grew nearer. He darted out the first door he came to, continued to run along the colonnade until he spotted his copter and he groaned. The short hairs and long hairs were fighting over it. They had pulled out all the boxes of plans and notes. He stopped, resting Lorna’s weight against a wall, and adjusted the force of his gun. He went on then and when he got within range of the copter he sprayed a charge over everyone in the area. It was too weak to kill, but they fell back before it, those who were able to walk. He pushed Lorna inside, dumping her unceremoniously on the floor where the boxes had been. The National Guard copters were starting to spray the area With anti-mob gas. Behind them there was an explosion within the temple and a geyser of smoke and rubble climbed into the sky. A roar came from the crowd. Blake started the engine and had to pause long enough to spray the area once more. He took off, straight up. A National Guard copter came down to intercept him and he accelerated, shooting off northeast into the darkness.
In the headquarters communications room on Mount Laurel Obie watched the scene with Dee Dee and Billy Warren Smith. Six cameras covered all of the battle from different vantage points, and the engineers continually switched from one to another so that the viewers were shown more of the action than they would have been able to see on the spot. There was only one clear shot of Blake, and none of. them recognized him.
Merton returned after a lengthy view phone conversation with the governor of Kentucky. He looked grim. “The bastard couldn’t be reached in time to activate the Guards earlier,” he said. “I say the time for a showdown is now.”
Obie nodded. Now. Merton left again to contact the lieutenant governor, one of their men, and they knew that by morning there would be a new administration in Kentucky.
“Somebody talked,” Obie said then. “They knew about the lights and the gas. They went straight for it, using the mobs out front as decoys.”
Dee Dee’s face was thoughtful. “But, by God, it was effective until they got to it! I never would have believed it.”
They talked on into the night, with Merton appearing and disappearing again and again, tallying the wounded and dead, receiving reports, and finally leaving to inspect the damage personally. He returned within two hours and got Obie out of bed. He had been given the box of plans and drawings abandoned by Blake.
“Where did they come from?” Obie asked. His face was swollen and ugly with sleep and he hated Merton intensely then, as he did every so often.