“Ahead is the Temple,” Heldon said suddenly. “The machinery is beneath it. There should be no one of interest in it at this hour, but I had best make sure. Wait here.”
“Suppose somebody notices us?” Amalfi said.
“This square is usually avoided. Also, I have men posted around it to divert any chance traffic. If you don’t wander away, you’ll be safe.”
The Proctor strode away toward the big domed building and disappeared abruptly down an alleyway. Behind Amalfi, Karst began to sing, in an exceedingly scratchy voice, but very softly: a folk-tune of some kind, obviously. The melody, which once had had to do with a town named Kazan, was too many thousands of years old for Amalfi to recognize it, even had he not been tune-deaf. Nevertheless, the mayor abruptly found himself listening to Karst, with the intensity of a hooded owl sonar-tracking a field mouse, Karst chanted:
“Wild on the wind rose the righteous wrath of Maalvin, Borne like a brand to the burning of the Barrens. Arms of hands of rebels perished then, Stars nor moons bedecked that midnight, IMT made the sky Fall!”
Seeing that Amalfi was listening to him, Karst stopped with an apologetic gesture. “Go ahead, Karst,” Amalfi said at once. “How does the rest go?”
“There isn’t time. There are hundreds of verses; every singer adds at least one of his own to the song. It is always supposed to end with this one:
“Black with their blood was the brick of that barrow, Toppled the tall towers, crushed to the clay. None might live who flouted Maalvin, Earth their souls spurned spaceward, wailing, IMT made the sky Fair.”
“That’s great,” Amalfi said grimly. “We really are in the soup-just about in the bottom of the bowl, I’d say. I wish I’d heard that song a week ago.”
“What does it tell you?” Karst said, wonderingly. “It is only an old legend.”