A metallic voice said, "Begin the talk, Thurne."
Burdick said suddenly, "I'll be damned. Look there."
In the clear air above the city, ahead of and below the ship, stood a gigantic three-dimensional image of Thurne, perhaps thirty feet high, moving slowly as the ship moved, his insubstantial feet brushing the tops of the queer ornate towers. And now Thurne was talking. Faintly through the hull came an echoing vibration from outside, and Wyatt knew that Thurne's voice, as greatly amplified as the prismatic projection of his personal image, was booming out over Obran. Down in the streets, in the sunlight, between the tall buildings and in the parks and along the rows of little mudbrick houses, people were running out to stare up in fear and amazement.
Thurne was speaking to his people in his own tongue so that Wyatt could not understand the words, but from his tone and the snarling glint of bared teeth he was not preaching submission as whole-heartedly as he might have done. Probably the Task Force was used to that. They could not control their captives absolutely on these propaganda broadcasts. They gave them the chance, and probably it paid off in enough surrenders to make it worthwhile. With more primitive people than Thurne's, the appearance of a giant in the sky over their heads would be enough in itself to make them collapse in utter panic.
Down below in the sunlit streets the people began to run here and there, and a haze of dust arose and shimmered. From the towers and the high walls a million carven faces looked out unmoved, the faces of a million dancing stone gods and goddesses.
The fleet came down in a whistling rush among the orchards and fields, burning and crushing wherever they landed in a great circle around the city. The people ran. They had no nuclear weapons, no ground-to-air missiles, no planes. They ran and there was no place to run to. They were already trapped.
Poor devils, thought Wyatt, and imagined what New York or Washington would be like under similar conditions, with a gigantic image of himself striding the sky and bellowing at them to surrender. The success of Makvern's revolt and the creation of a wide split in the fleet itself were now his only hope that that might not happen.
"I thought," said Burdick, "that Thurne was so sure they'd fight."
"They will," said Wyatt. "Look. The panic's already quieting." The women and children had disappeared from the streets now. Groups of men still ran but their running was purposeful. Suddenly from various places around the outskirts of the city puffs of smoke burst out and Whitfield said,
"Little cannon, by God!"