It was easy enough to see. The lights of the town houses were small and sickly yellow. But above and beyond them were concentrated bars of vivid blue and startling white, somehow garish and out of place against the purple-blue of the sky. Kimber circled.
The Temple occupied about a third of the rise which bad been leveled off to form a wide platform. Behind the building itself was a floodlit space in which they could see a row of’copters.
“Ten down there,” Kimber counted, the lighting of the instrument panel showing the planes and hollows of his face. “You’d think they would have more. This is a center for their control and they don’t do much raiding by night. Or at least they haven’t in the past.”
“They may now. They struck our place at night.”
“Anyway, the fewer the better. Look, that’s a nice long shadow-one of their floods must have burnt out. I’m going to see if I can bring us down in it!”
They lost speed, it was something like coasting, much like floating, Dard decided. Then the lights arose about them and a second later the undercarriage made contact. They didn’t bounce. Kimber shook hands with himself vigorously, in congratulation.
“Now listen, kid,” the pilot’s voice was a faint murmur.
“That’s a stun gun you have in your belt. Ever use one?”
“No.”
“It doesn’t require training to point it and push the button. But you’re not to do that unless I give the word, understand? You have only two charges and I have the same in mine-we can’t afford to waste them. Nothing- absolutely nothing must happen to prevent our interview with the Voice!” There was a passionate determination in that. It was an order, delivered not only to Dard, but to Destiny or Fortune herself. “Afterward we may have to fight our way out-though I hope not. Then the stun guns will be our hope. But we’ve got to use bluff to get us in!”