The archbishop smiled, a curiously chilling smile. “And how will you go about it?” he asked softly.

“I have taken care that all priests of the true faith know what I do,” said Sharr. “It won’t help you to kill me. We will tell the truth to the people. We have prepared machines which will duplicate a number of your miracles.” Sharr lifted a clenched fist and his voice shook with triumph: “I came, really, to warn you—if you’re wise, you will leave this planet at once!”

The expected dismay did not appear. The archbishop said calmly and implacably: “You might be better off doing that. Surely you don’t think we didn’t foresee this?”

With a sense of dawning horror, Sharr stood in the singing gloom while the white birds circled far overhead. He heard the steady, relentless voice continue:

“I doubt if your machines will work. You never heard of an inhibitor field, but we have our projectors ready to generate one over the whole planet if need be. But it will not stop certain other devices we have had in preparation. If you blaspheme against the Galactic lord, major miracles will be in order. The lord himself might appear, ten kilometers tall with lightning blazing around him. Can your god do that?”

“Then”—Sharr spoke out of a dry, constricted throat—“you admit it is true—?”

“If you like,” said the archbishop cheerfully. “But try to get anyone to believe that.”

* * *

Slinh had a room—more accurately, a den—in one of the old abandoned sewers under the city. The little stony niche was dank and slimy and vile-smelling, but it was at least fairly safe from the police who were rounding up all aliens. Wing Alak sat hunched on the floor and cursed the day he was born.

“This hideout may be saving my life,” he grumbled, “but I wonder if life is worth saving on such terms.”

The little reptile coiled before him leered complacently. “It’s all I can offer the great Patrolman,” he gibed. His eyes glistened in the dim glow of the radiant heater that was his sole article of furniture. “If you don’t like it—”

“Never mind, never mind.” Alak tried to get down another mouthful of the fishy mess the Rassalan called food but decided it involved too great a risk of losing what he already had eaten. “Now about this deal you offered to make—we have to act fast. Already we’re too late to prevent the war but it’ll take the Luanian battle fleet a few days to get started for Marhal, or the Marhalians a few days to get to us. In that time we have to stop the war. Once battle is joined, it’ll be pretty hopeless before several million have been killed.”

“Never mind the pious platitudes,” said Slinh coldly. “A being who makes deals with sivva peddlers can’t afford to moralize. The point is that I’m running a terrific risk in helping you and will expect a commensurate reward.”