Temple Trouble | Page 2

door and pressing on the other end. The door opened, then swung shut behind him,
and as it locked itself, the lights came on within. Ghullam removed his miter and his false
beard, tossing them aside on a table, then undid his sash and peeled out of his robe. His
regalia discarded, he stood for a moment in loose trousers and a soft white shirt, with a
pistollike weapon in a shoulder holster under his left arm--no longer Ghullam the high
priest of Yat-Zar, but now Stranor Sleth, resident agent on this time-line of the Fourth
Level Proto-Aryan Sector for the Transtemporal Mining Corporation. Then he opened a
door at the other side of the anteroom and went to the antigrav shaft, stepping over the
edge and floating downward.
* * * * *
There were temples of Yat-Zar on every time-line of the Proto-Aryan Sector, for the
worship of Yat-Zar was ancient among the Hulgun people of that area of paratime, but
there were only a few which had such installations as this, and all of them were owned
and operated by Transtemporal Mining, which had the fissionable ores franchise for this
sector. During the ten elapsed centuries since Transtemporal had begun operations on this
sector, the process had become standardized. A few First Level paratimers would
transpose to a selected time-line and abduct an upper-priest of Yat-Zar, preferably the
high priest of the temple at Yoldav or Zurb. He would be drugged and transposed to the
First Level, where he would receive hypnotic indoctrination and, while unconscious, have
an operation performed on his ears which would enable him to hear sounds well above
the normal audible range. He would be able to hear the shrill sonar-cries of bats, for
instance, and, more important, he would be able to hear voices when the speaker used a
First Level audio-frequency step-up phone. He would also receive a memory-obliteration
from the moment of his abduction, and a set of pseudo-memories of a visit to the Heaven
of Yat-Zar, on the other side of the sky. Then he would be returned to his own time-line
and left on a mountain top far from his temple, where an unknown peasant, leading a
donkey, would always find him, return him to the temple, and then vanish inexplicably.
Then the priest would begin hearing voices, usually while serving at the altar. They
would warn of future events, which would always come to pass exactly as foretold. Or
they might bring tidings of things happening at a distance, the news of which would not
arrive by normal means for days or even weeks. Before long, the holy man who had been
carried alive to the Heaven of Yat-Zar would acquire a most awesome reputation as a
prophet, and would speedily rise to the very top of the priestly hierarchy.
Then he would receive two commandments from Yat-Zar. The first would ordain that all
lower priests must travel about from temple to temple, never staying longer than a year at
any one place. This would insure a steady influx of newcomers personally unknown to
the local upper-priests, and many of them would be First Level paratimers. Then, there
would be a second commandment: A house must be built for Yat-Zar, against the rear
wall of each temple. Its dimensions were minutely stipulated; its walls were to be of stone,

without windows, and there was to be a single door, opening into the Holy of Holies, and
before the walls were finished, the door was to be barred from within. A triple veil of
brocaded fabric was to be hung in front of this door. Sometimes such innovations met
with opposition from the more conservative members of the hierarchy: when they did, the
principal objector would be seized with a sudden and violent illness; he would recover if
and when he withdrew his objections.
Very shortly after the House of Yat-Zar would be completed, strange noises would be
heard from behind the thick walls. Then, after a while, one of the younger priests would
announce that he had been commanded in a vision to go behind the veil and knock upon
the door. Going behind the curtains, he would use his door-activator to let himself in, and
return by paratime-conveyer to the First Level to enjoy a well-earned vacation. When the
high priest would follow him behind the veil, after a few hours, and find that he had
vanished, it would be announced as a miracle. A week later, an even greater miracle
would be announced. The young priest would return from behind the Triple Veil, clad in
such raiment as no man had ever seen, and bearing in his hands a strange box. He would
announce that Yat-Zar had commanded him to build a new temple in the