Transcriber's note: This etext was produced from _Astounding Science Fiction_, July 1948. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed. 

[Illustration]

POLICE OPERATION

BY H. BEAM PIPER

 _Hunting down the beast, under the best of circumstances, was dangerous. But in this little police operation, the conditions required the use of inadequate means!_

 Illustrated by Cartier

 * * * * *

 ". .. _there may be something in the nature of an occult police force, which operates to divert human suspicions, and to supply explanations that are good enough for whatever, somewhat in the nature of minds, human beings have--or that, if there be occult mischief makers and occult ravagers, they may be of a world also of other beings that are acting to check them, and to explain them, not benevolently, but to divert suspicion from themselves, because they, too, may be exploiting life upon this earth, but in ways more subtle, and in orderly, or organised, fashion. _" _Charles Fort:_ "LO!"

John Strawmyer stood, an irate figure in faded overalls andsweat-whitened black shirt, apart from the others, his back to theweathered farm-buildings and the line of yellowing woods and thecirrus-streaked blue October sky. He thrust out a work-gnarled handaccusingly. 

"That there heifer was worth two hund'rd, two hund'rd an' fiftydollars!" he clamored. "An' that there dog was just like one uh thefam'ly; An' now look at'm! I don't like t' use profane language, butyou'ns gotta _do_ some'n about this!"

Steve Parker, the district game protector, aimed his Leica at thecarcass of the dog and snapped the shutter. "We're doing something aboutit, " he said shortly. Then he stepped ten feet to the left and edgedaround the mangled heifer, choosing an angle for his camera shot. 

The two men in the gray whipcords of the State police, seeing thatParker was through with the dog, moved in and squatted to examine it. The one with the triple chevrons on his sleeves took it by both forefeetand flipped it over on its back. It had been a big brute, of nondescriptbreed, with a rough black-and-brown coat. Something had clawed it deeplyabout the head, its throat was slashed transversely several times, andit had been disemboweled by a single slash that had opened its bellyfrom breastbone to tail. They looked at it carefully, and then went tostand beside Parker while he photographed the dead heifer. Like the dog, it had been talon-raked on either side of the head, and its throat hadbeen slashed deeply several times. In addition, flesh had been torn fromone flank in great strips. 

"I can't kill a bear outa season, no!" Strawmyer continued his plaint. "But a bear comes an' kills my stock an' my dog; that there's all right!That's the kinda deal a farmer always gits, in this state! I don't liket' use profane language--"

"Then don't!" Parker barked at him, impatiently. "Don't use any kindof language. Just put in your claim and shut up!" He turned to the menin whipcords and gray Stetsons. "You boys seen everything?" he asked. "Then let's go. "

 * * * * *

They walked briskly back to the barnyard, Strawmyer following them, still vociferating about the wrongs of the farmer at the hands ofa cynical and corrupt State government. They climbed into the Statepolice car, the sergeant and the private in front and Parker intothe rear, laying his camera on the seat beside a Winchester carbine. 

"Weren't you pretty short with that fellow, back there, Steve?" thesergeant asked as the private started the car. 

"Not too short. 'I don't like t' use profane language', " Parker mimickedthe bereaved heifer owner, and then he went on to specify: "I'm morallycertain that he's shot at least four illegal deer in the last year. When and if I ever get anything on him, he's going to be sorrier forhimself then he is now. "

"They're the characters that always beef their heads off, " the sergeantagreed. "You think that whatever did this was the same as the others?"

"Yes. The dog must have jumped it while it was eating at the heifer. Same superficial scratches about the head, and deep cuts on the throator belly. The bigger the animal, the farther front the big slashesoccur. Evidently something grabs them by the head with front claws, and slashes with hind claws; that's why I think it's a bobcat. "

"You know, " the private said, "I saw a lot of wounds like that duringthe war. My outfit landed on Mindanao, where the guerrillas had beenactive. And this looks like bolo-work to me. "

"The surplus-stores are full of machetes and jungle knives, " thesergeant considered. "I think I'll call up Doc Winters, at the CountyHospital, and see if all his squirrel-fodder is present and accountedfor. "

"But most of the livestock was eaten at, like the heifer, " Parkerobjected. 

"By definition, nuts have abnormal tastes, " the sergeant replied. "Or the eating might have been done later, by foxes. "

"I hope so; that'd let me out, " Parker said. 

"Ha, listen to the man!" the private howled, stopping the car at theend of the lane. "He thinks a nut with a machete and a Tarzan complexis just good clean fun. Which way, now?"

"Well, let's see. " The sergeant had unfolded a quadrangle sheet; thegame protector leaned forward to look at it over his shoulder. Thesergeant ran a finger from one to another of a series of variouslycolored crosses which had been marked on the map. 

"Monday night, over here on Copperhead Mountain, that cow was killed, "he said. "The next night, about ten o'clock, that sheepflock was hit, on this side of Copperhead, right about here. Early Wednesday night, that mule got slashed up in the woods back of the Weston farm. It wasonly slightly injured; must have kicked the whatzit and got away, butthe whatzit wasn't too badly hurt, because a few hours later, it hitthat turkey-flock on the Rhymer farm. And last night, it did that. " Hejerked a thumb over his shoulder at the Strawmyer farm. "See, followingthe ridges, working toward the southeast, avoiding open ground, killingonly at night. Could be a bobcat, at that. "

"Or Jink's maniac with the machete, " Parker agreed. "Let's go up byHindman's gap and see if we can see anything. "

 * * * * *

They turned, after a while, into a rutted dirt road, which deterioratedsteadily into a grass-grown track through the woods. Finally, theystopped, and the private backed off the road. The three men got out;Parker with his Winchester, the sergeant checking the drum of aThompson, and the private pumping a buckshot shell into the chamber ofa riot gun. For half an hour, they followed the brush-grown trail besidethe little stream; once, they passed a dark gray commercial-model jeep, backed to one side. Then they came to the head of the gap. 

A man, wearing a tweed coat, tan field boots, and khaki breeches, wassitting on a log, smoking a pipe; he had a bolt-action rifle across hisknees, and a pair of binoculars hung from his neck. He seemed aboutthirty years old, and any bobby-soxer's idol of the screen would haveenvied him the handsome regularity of his strangely immobile features. As Parker and the two State policemen approached, he rose, slinging hisrifle, and greeted them. 

"Sergeant Haines, isn't it?" he asked pleasantly. "Are you gentlemenout hunting the critter, too?"

"Good afternoon, Mr. Lee. I thought that was your jeep I saw, down theroad a little. " The sergeant turned to the others. "Mr. Richard Lee;staying at the old Kinchwalter place, the other side of Rutter's Fort. This is Mr. Parker, the district game protector. And Private Zinkowski. "He glanced at the rifle. "Are you out hunting for it, too?"

"Yes, I thought I might find something, up here. What do you think it is?"

"I don't know, " the sergeant admitted. "It could be a bobcat. Canadalynx. Jink, here, has a theory that it's some escapee from thepaper-doll factory, with a machete. Me, I hope not, but I'm notignoring the possibility. "

The man with the matinee-idol's face nodded. "It could be a lynx. I understand they're not unknown, in this section. "

"We paid bounties on two in this county, in the last year, " Parker said. "Odd rifle you have, there; mind if I look at it?"

"Not at all. " The man who had been introduced as Richard Lee unslung andhanded it over. "The chamber's loaded, " he cautioned. 

"I never saw one like this, " Parker said. "Foreign?"

"I think so. I don't know anything about it; it belongs to a friend ofmine, who loaned it to me. I think the action's German, or Czech; therest of it's a custom job, by some West Coast gunmaker. It's chamberedfor some ultra-velocity wildcat load. "

The rifle passed from hand to hand; the three men examined it in turn, commenting admiringly. 

"You find anything, Mr. Lee?" the sergeant asked, handing it back. 

"Not a trace. " The man called Lee slung the rifle and began to dumpthe ashes from his pipe. "I was along the top of this ridge for abouta mile on either side of the gap, and down the other side as far asHindman's Run; I didn't find any tracks, or any indication of whereit had made a kill. "

The game protector nodded, turning to Sergeant Haines. 

"There's no use us going any farther, " he said. "Ten to one, it followedthat line of woods back of Strawmyer's, and crossed over to the otherridge. I think our best bet would be the hollow at the head of Lowrie'sRun. What do you think?"

The sergeant agreed. The man called Richard Lee began to refill his pipemethodically. 

"I think I shall stay here for a while, but I believe you're right. Lowrie's Run, or across Lowrie's Gap into Coon Valley, " he said. 

 * * * * *

After Parker and the State policemen had gone, the man whom they hadaddressed as Richard Lee returned to his log and sat smoking, his rifleacross his knees. From time to time, he glanced at his wrist watch andraised his head to listen. At length, faint in the distance, he heardthe sound of a motor starting. 

Instantly, he was on his feet. From the end of the hollow log on whichhe had been sitting, he produced a canvas musette-bag. Walking brisklyto a patch of damp ground beside the little stream, he leaned the rifleagainst a tree and opened the bag. First, he took out a pair of glovesof some greenish, rubberlike substance, and put them on, drawing thelong gauntlets up over his coat sleeves. Then he produced a bottle andunscrewed the cap. Being careful to avoid splashing his clothes, hewent about, pouring a clear liquid upon the ground in several places. Where he poured, white vapors rose, and twigs and grass grumbled intobrownish dust. After he had replaced the cap and returned the bottle tothe bag, he waited for a few minutes, then took a spatula from themusette and dug where he had poured the fluid, prying loose four black, irregular-shaped lumps of matter, which he carried to the running waterand washed carefully, before wrapping them and putting them in the bag, along with the gloves. Then he slung bag and rifle and started down thetrail to where he had parked the jeep. 

Half an hour later, after driving through the little farming village ofRutter's Fort, he pulled into the barnyard of a rundown farm and backedthrough the open doors of the barn. He closed the double doors behindhim, and barred them from within. Then he went to the rear wall of thebarn, which was much closer the front than the outside dimensions of thebarn would have indicated. 

He took from his pocket a black object like an automatic pencil. Hunting over the rough plank wall, he found a small hole and insertedthe pointed end of the pseudo-pencil, pressing on the other end. For aninstant, nothing happened. Then a ten-foot-square section of the wallreceded two feet and slid noiselessly to one side. The section whichhad slid inward had been built of three-inch steel, masked by a thincovering of boards; the wall around it was two-foot concrete, similarlycamouflaged. He stepped quickly inside. 

Fumbling at the right side of the opening, he found a switch and flickedit. Instantly, the massive steel plate slid back into place with a soft, oily click. As it did, lights came on within the hidden room, disclosing a great semiglobe of some fine metallic mesh, thirty feet indiameter and fifteen in height. There was a sliding door at one side ofthis; the man called Richard Lee opened and entered through it, closingit behind him. Then he turned to the center of the hollow dome, wherean armchair was placed in front of a small desk below a large instrumentpanel. The gauges and dials on the panel, and the levers and switchesand buttons on the desk control board, were all lettered and numberedwith characters not of the Roman alphabet or the Arabic notation, and, within instant reach of the occupant of the chair, a pistollike weaponlay on the desk. It had a conventional index-finger trigger and ahand-fit grip, but, instead of a tubular barrel, two slender parallelmetal rods extended about four inches forward of the receiver, joinedtogether at what would correspond to the muzzle by a streamlined knobof some light blue ceramic or plastic substance. 

The man with the handsome immobile face deposited his rifle and musetteon the floor beside the chair and sat down. First, he picked up thepistollike weapon and checked it, and then he examined the manyinstruments on the panel in front of him. Finally, he flicked a switchon the control board. 

At once, a small humming began, from some point overhead. It wavered andshrilled and mounted in intensity, and then fell to a steady monotone. The dome about him flickered with a queer, cold iridescence, and slowlyvanished. The hidden room vanished, and he was looking into the shadowyinterior of a deserted barn. The barn vanished; blue sky appeared above, streaked with wisps of high cirrus cloud. The autumn landscape flickeredunreally. Buildings appeared and vanished, and other buildings came andwent in a twinkling. All around him, half-seen shapes moved briefly anddisappeared. 

Once, the figure of a man appeared, inside the circle of the dome. Hehad an angry, brutal face, and he wore a black tunic piped with silver, and black breeches, and polished black boots, and there was an insignia, composed of a cross and thunderbolt, on his cap. He held an automaticpistol in his hand. 

Instantly, the man at the desk snatched up his own weapon and thumbedoff the safety, but before he could lift and aim it, the intruderstumbled and passed outside the force-field which surrounded the chairand instruments. 

For a while, there were fires raging outside, and for a while, theman at the desk was surrounded by a great hall, with a high, vaultedceiling, through which figures flitted and vanished. For a while, there were vistas of deep forests, always set in the same backgroundof mountains and always under the same blue cirrus-laced sky. Therewas an interval of flickering blue-white light, of unbearableintensity. Then the man at the desk was surrounded by the interiorof vast industrial works. The moving figures around him slowed, andbecame more distinct. For an instant, the man in the chair grinned ashe found himself looking into a big washroom, where a tall blond girlwas taking a shower bath, and a pert little redhead was vigorouslydrying herself with a towel. The dome grew visible, coruscating withmany-colored lights and then the humming died and the dome became acold and inert mesh of fine white metal. A green light above flashedon and off slowly. 

He stabbed a button and flipped a switch, then got to his feet, picking up his rifle and musette and fumbling under his shirt fora small mesh bag, from which he took an inch-wide disk of blue plastic. Unlocking a container on the instrument panel, he removed a small rollof solidograph-film, which he stowed in his bag. Then he slid open thedoor and emerged into his own dimension of space-time. 

Outside was a wide hallway, with a pale green floor, paler greenwalls, and a ceiling of greenish off-white. A big hole had been cut toaccommodate the dome, and across the hallway a desk had been set up, and at it sat a clerk in a pale blue tunic, who was just taking theaudio-plugs of a music-box out of his ears. A couple of policemen ingreen uniforms, with ultrasonic paralyzers dangling by thongs from theirleft wrists and bolstered sigma-ray needlers like the one on the deskinside the dome, were kidding with some girls in vivid orange andscarlet and green smocks. One of these, in bright green, was a duplicateof the one he had seen rubbing herself down with a towel. 

"Here comes your boss-man, " one of the girls told the cops, as heapproached. They both turned and saluted casually. The man who hadlately been using the name of Richard Lee responded to their greetingand went to the desk. The policemen grasped their paralyzers, drewtheir needlers, and hurried into the dome. 

Taking the disk of blue plastic from his packet, he handed it to theclerk at the desk, who dropped it into a slot in the voder in frontof him. Instantly, a mechanical voice responded:

"Verkan Vall, blue-seal noble, hereditary Mavrad of Nerros. SpecialChief's Assistant, Paratime Police, special assignment. Subject to noorders below those of Tortha Karf, Chief of Paratime Police. To be givenall courtesies and co-operation within the Paratime Transposition Codeand the Police Powers Code. Further particulars?"

The clerk pressed the "no"-button. The blue sigil fell out therelease-slot and was handed back to its bearer, who was drawing uphis left sleeve. 

"You'll want to be sure I'm _your_ Verkan Vall, I suppose?" he said, extending his arm. 

"Yes, quite, sir. "

The clerk touched his arm with a small instrument which swabbed it withantiseptic, drew a minute blood-sample, and medicated the needle prick, all in one almost painless operation. He put the blood-drop on a slideand inserted it at one side of a comparison microscope, nodding. Itshowed the same distinctive permanent colloid pattern as the sample hehad ready for comparison; the colloid pattern given in infancy byinjection to the man in front of him, to set him apart from all themyriad other Verkan Valls on every other probability-line of paratime. 

"Right, sir, " the clerk nodded. 

The two policemen came out of the dome, their needlers holstered andtheir vigilance relaxed. They were lighting cigarettes as they emerged. 

"It's all right, sir, " one of them said. "You didn't bring anything inwith you, this trip. "

The other cop chuckled. "Remember that Fifth Level wild-man who came inon the freight conveyor at Jandar, last month?" he asked. 

If he was hoping that some of the girls would want to know, whatwild-man, it was a vain hope. With a blue-seal mavrad around, whatchance did a couple of ordinary coppers have? The girls were alreadyconverging on Verkan Vall. 

"When are you going to get that monstrosity out of our restroom, " thelittle redhead in green coveralls was demanding. "If it wasn't for thatthing, I'd be taking a shower, right now. "

"You were just finishing one, about fifty paraseconds off, when I camethrough, " Verkan Vall told her. 

The girl looked at him in obviously feigned indignation. 

"Why, you--You _parapeeper_!"

Verkan Vall chuckled and turned to the clerk. "I want a strato-rocketand pilot, for Dhergabar, right away. Call Dhergabar Paratime PoliceField and give them my ETA; have an air-taxi meet me, and have the chiefnotified that I'm coming in. Extraordinary report. Keep a guard overthe conveyor; I think I'm going to need it, again, soon. " He turned tothe little redhead. "Want to show me the way out of here, to the rocketfield?" he asked. 

 * * * * *

[Illustration]

Outside, on the open landing field, Verkan Vall glanced up at the sky, then looked at his watch. It had been twenty minutes since he had backedthe jeep into the barn, on that distant other time-line; the samedelicate lines of white cirrus were etched across the blue above. Theconstancy of the weather, even across two hundred thousand parayears ofperpendicular time, never failed to impress him. The long curve of themountains was the same, and they were mottled with the same autumncolors, but where the little village of Rutter's Fort stood on thatother line of probability, the white towers of an apartment-cityrose--the living quarters of the plant personnel. 

The rocket that was to take him to headquarters was being hoisted witha crane and lowered into the firing-stand, and he walked briskly towardit, his rifle and musette slung. A boyish-looking pilot was on theplatform, opening the door of the rocket; he stood aside for VerkanVall to enter, then followed and closed it, dogging it shut while hispassenger stowed his bag and rifle and strapped himself into a seat. 

"Dhergabar Commercial Terminal, sir?" the pilot asked, taking theadjoining seat at the controls. 

"Paratime Police Field, back of the Paratime Administration Building. "

"Right, sir. Twenty seconds to blast, when you're ready. "

"Ready now. " Verkan Vall relaxed, counting seconds subconsciously. 

The rocket trembled, and Verkan Vall felt himself being pushed gentlyback against the upholstery. The seats, and the pilot's instrument panelin front of them, swung on gimbals, and the finger of the indicatorswept slowly over a ninety-degree arc as the rocket rose and leveled. By then, the high cirrus clouds Verkan Vall had watched from the fieldwere far below; they were well into the stratosphere. 

There would be nothing to do, now, for the three hours in which therocket sped northward across the pole and southward to Dhergabar; thenavigation was entirely in the electronic hands of the robot controls. Verkan Vall got out his pipe and lit it; the pilot lit a cigarette. 

"That's an odd pipe, sir, " the pilot said. "Out-time item?"

"Yes, Fourth Probability Level; typical of the whole paratime belt I wasworking in. " Verkan Vall handed it over for inspection. "The bowl'snatural brier-root; the stem's a sort of plastic made from the sap ofcertain tropical trees. The little white dot is the maker's trademark;it's made of elephant tusk. "

"Sounds pretty crude to me, sir. " The pilot handed it back. "Niceworkmanship, though. Looks like good machine production. "

"Yes. The sector I was on is really quite advanced, for anelectro-chemical civilization. That weapon I brought back withme--that solid-missile projector--is typical of most Fourth Levelculture. Moving parts machined to the closest tolerances, andinterchangeable with similar parts of all similar weapons. The missileis a small bolt of cupro-alloy coated lead, propelled by expandinggases from the ignition of some nitro-cellulose compound. Most oftheir scientific advance occurred within the past century, and mostof that in the past forty years. Of course, the life-expectancy onthat level is only about seventy years. "

"Humph! I'm seventy-eight, last birthday, " the boyish-looking pilotsnorted. "Their medical science must be mostly witchcraft!"

"Until quite recently, it was, " Verkan Vall agreed. "Same story thereas in everything else--rapid advancement in the past few decades, afterthousands of years of cultural inertia. "

"You know, sir, I don't really understand this paratime stuff, " thepilot confessed. "I know that all time is totally present, and thatevery moment has its own past-future line of event-sequence, and thatall events in space-time occur according to maximum probability, but Ijust don't get this alternate probability stuff, at all. If somethingexists, it's because it's the maximum-probability effect of priorcauses; why does anything else exist on any other time-line?"

Verkan Vall blew smoke at the air-renovator. A lecture on paratimetheory would nicely fill in the three-hour interval until the landingat Dhergabar. At least, this kid was asking intelligent questions. 

"Well, you know the principal of time-passage, I suppose?" he began. 

"Yes, of course; Rhogom's Doctrine. The basis of most of our psychicalscience. We exist perpetually at all moments within our life-span; ourextraphysical ego component passes from the ego existing at one momentto the ego existing at the next. During unconsciousness, the EPC is'time-free'; it may detach, and connect at some other moment, with theego existing at that time-point. That's how we precog. We take anautohypno and recover memories brought back from the future momentand buried in the subconscious mind. "

"That's right, " Verkan Vall told him. "And even without the autohypno, a lot of precognitive matter leaks out of the subconscious and intothe conscious mind, usually in distorted forms, or else inspires'instinctive' acts, the motivation for which is not brought to the levelof consciousness. For instance, suppose, you're walking along NorthPromenade, in Dhergabar, and you come to the Martian Palace Café, andyou go in for a drink, and meet some girl, and strike up an acquaintancewith her. This chance acquaintance develops into a love affair, anda year later, out of jealousy, she rays you half a dozen times witha needler. "

"Just about that happened to a friend of mine, not long ago, " the pilotsaid. "Go on, sir. "

"Well, in the microsecond or so before you die--or afterward, for thatmatter, because we know that the extraphysical component survivesphysical destruction--your EPC slips back a couple of years, andre-connects at some point pastward of your first meeting with thisgirl, and carries with it memories of everything up to the moment ofdetachment, all of which are indelibly recorded in your subconsciousmind. So, when you re-experience the event of standing outside theMartian Palace with a thirst, you go on to the Starway, or Nhergal's, or some other bar. In both cases, on both time-lines, you follow theline of maximum probability; in the second case, your subconsciousfuture memories are an added causal factor. "

"And when I back-slip, after I've been needled, I generate a newtime-line? Is that it?"

Verkan Vall made a small sound of impatience. "No such thing!" heexclaimed. "It's semantically inadmissible to talk about the totalpresence of time with one breath and about generating new time-lineswith the next. _All_ time-lines are totally present, in perpetualco-existence. The theory is that the EPC passes from one moment, on onetime-line, to the next moment on the next line, so that the true passageof the EPC from moment to moment is a two-dimensional diagonal. So, inthe case we're using, the event of your going into the Martian Palaceexists on one time-line, and the event of your passing along to theStarway exists on another, but both are events in real existence. 

"Now, what we do, in paratime transposition, is to build up ahypertemporal field to include the time-line we want to reach, and thenshift over to it. Same point in the plenum; same point in primarytime--plus primary time elapsed during mechanical and electronic lagin the relays--but a different line of secondary time. "

"Then why don't we have past-future time travel on our own time-line?"the pilot wanted to know. 

That was a question every paratimer has to answer, every time he talksparatime to the laity. Verkan Vall had been expecting it; he answeredpatiently. 

"The Ghaldron-Hesthor field-generator is like every other mechanism; itcan operate only in the area of primary time in which it exists. It cantranspose to any other time-line, and carry with it anything inside itsfield, but it can't go outside its own temporal area of existence, anymore than a bullet from that rifle can hit the target a week before it'sfired, " Verkan Vall pointed out. "Anything inside the field is supposedto be unaffected by anything outside. _Supposed to be_ is the way to putit; it doesn't always work. Once in a while, something pretty nasty getspicked up in transit. " He thought, briefly, of the man in the blacktunic. "That's why we have armed guards at terminals. "

"Suppose you pick up a blast from a nucleonic bomb, " the pilot asked, "or something red-hot, or radioactive?"

"We have a monument, at Paratime Police Headquarters, in Dhergabar, bearing the names of our own personnel who didn't make it back. It's alarge monument; over the past ten thousand years, it's been inscribedwith quite a few names. "

"You can have it; I'll stick to rockets!" the pilot replied. "Tell meanother thing, though: What's all this about levels, and sectors, andbelts? What's the difference?"

"Purely arbitrary terms. There are five main probability levels, derivedfrom the five possible outcomes of the attempt to colonize this planet, seventy-five thousand years ago. We're on the First Level--completesuccess, and colony fully established. The Fifth Level is theprobability of complete failure--no human population established on thisplanet, and indigenous quasi-human life evolved indigenously. On theFourth Level, the colonists evidently met with some disaster and lostall memory of their extraterrestrial origin, as well as allextraterrestrial culture. As far as they know, they are an indigenousrace; they have a long pre-history of stone-age savagery. 

"Sectors are areas of paratime on any level in which the prevalentculture has a common origin and common characteristics. They are dividedmore or less arbitrarily into sub-sectors. Belts are areas withinsub-sectors where conditions are the result of recent alternateprobabilities. For instance, I've just come from the Europo-AmericanSector of the Fourth Level, an area of about ten thousand parayears indepth, in which the dominant civilization developed on the North-WestContinent of the Major Land Mass, and spread from there to the MinorLand Mass. The line on which I was operating is also part of asub-sector of about three thousand parayears' depth, and a beltdeveloping from one of several probable outcomes of a war concludedabout three elapsed years ago. On that time-line, the field at theHagraban Synthetics Works, where we took off, is part of an abandonedfarm; on the site of Hagraban City is a little farming village. Thosethings are there, right now, both in primary time and in the plenum. They are about two hundred and fifty thousand parayears perpendicularto each other, and each is of the same general order of reality. "

The red light overhead flashed on. The pilot looked into his visor andput his hands to the manual controls, in case of failure of the robotcontrols. The rocket landed smoothly, however; there was a slight jaras it was grappled by the crane and hoisted upright, the seats turningin their gimbals. Pilot and passenger unstrapped themselves and hurriedthrough the refrigerated outlet and away from the glowing-hot rocket. 

 * * * * *

An air-taxi, emblazoned with the device of the Paratime Police, waswaiting. Verkan Vall said good-by to the rocket-pilot and took his seatbeside the pilot of the aircab; the latter lifted his vehicle above thebuilding level and then set it down on the landing-stage of the ParatimePolice Building in a long, side-swooping glide. An express elevator tookVerkan Vall down to one of the middle stages, where he showed his sigilto the guard outside the door of Tortha Karf's office and was admittedat once. 

The Paratime Police chief rose from behind his semicircular desk, withits array of keyboards and viewing-screens and communicators. He was abig man, well past his two hundredth year; his hair was iron-gray andthinning in front, he had begun to grow thick at the waist, and his calmfeatures bore the lines of middle age. He wore the dark-green uniformof the Paratime Police. 

"Well, Vall, " he greeted. "Everything secure?"

"Not exactly, sir. " Verkan Vall came around the desk, deposited hisrifle and bag on the floor, and sat down in one of the spare chairs. "I'll have to go back again. "

"So?" His chief lit a cigarette and waited. 

"I traced Gavran Sarn. " Verkan Vall got out his pipe and began to fillit. "But that's only the beginning. I have to trace something else. Gavran Sarn exceeded his Paratime permit, and took one of his petsalong. A Venusian nighthound. "

Tortha Karf's expression did not alter; it merely grew more intense. He used one of the short, semantically ugly terms which serve, in placeof profanity, as the emotional release of a race that has forgotten allthe taboos and terminologies of supernaturalistic religion andsex-inhibition. 

"You're sure of this, of course. " It was less a question thana statement. 

Verkan Vall bent and took cloth-wrapped objects from his bag, unwrappingthem and laying them on the desk. They were casts, in hard blackplastic, of the footprints of some large three-toed animal. 

"What do these look like, sir?" he asked. 

Tortha Karf fingered them and nodded. Then he became as visibly angryas a man of his civilization and culture-level ever permitted himself. 

"What does that fool think we have a Paratime Code for?" he demanded. "It's entirely illegal to transpose any extraterrestrial animal orobject to any time-line on which space-travel is unknown. I don't careif he is a green-seal thavrad; he'll face charges, when he gets back, for this!"

"He _was_ a green-seal thavrad, " Verkan Vall corrected. "And he won't becoming back. "

"I hope you didn't have to deal summarily with him, " Tortha Karf said. "With his title, and social position, and his family's politicalimportance, that might make difficulties. Not that it wouldn't be allright with me, of course, but we never seem to be able to make eitherthe Management or the public realize the extremities to which we areforced, at times. " He sighed. "We probably never shall. "

Verkan Vall smiled faintly. "Oh, no, sir; nothing like that. He wasdead before I transposed to that time-line. He was killed when hewrecked a self-propelled vehicle he was using. One of those FourthLevel automobiles. I posed as a relative and tried to claim his bodyfor the burial-ceremony observed on that cultural level, but was toldthat it had been completely destroyed by fire when the fuel tank ofthis automobile burned. I was given certain of his effects which hadpassed through the fire; I found his sigil concealed inside whatappeared to be a cigarette case. " He took a green disk from the bagand laid it on the desk. "There's no question; Gavran Sarn died inthe wreck of that automobile. "

"And the nighthound?"

"It was in the car with him, but it escaped. You know how fast thosethings are. I found that track"--he indicated one of the blackcasts--"in some dried mud near the scene of the wreck. As you see, the cast is slightly defective. The others were fresh this morning, when I made them. "

"And what have you done so far?"

"I rented an old farm near the scene of the wreck, and installed myfield-generator there. It runs through to the Hagraban Synthetics Works, about a hundred miles east of Thalna-Jarvizar. I have my this-lineterminal in the girls' rest room at the durable plastics factory;handled that on a local police-power writ. Since then, I've been huntingfor the nighthound. I think I can find it, but I'll need some specialequipment, and a hypno-mech indoctrination. That's why I came back. "

"Has it been attracting any attention?" Tortha Karf asked anxiously. 

"Killing cattle in the locality; causing considerable excitement. Fortunately, it's a locality of forested mountains and valley farms, rather than a built-up industrial district. Local police and wild-gameprotection officers are concerned; all the farmers excited, and goingarmed. The theory is that it's either a wildcat of some sort, or amaniac armed with a cutlass. Either theory would conform, more or less, to the nature of its depredations. Nobody has actually seen it. "

"That's good!" Tortha Karf was relieved. "Well, you'll have to go andbring it out, or kill it and obliterate the body. You know why, as wellas I do. "

"Certainly, sir, " Verkan Vall replied. "In a primitive culture, thingslike this would be assigned supernatural explanations, and imbeddedin the locally accepted religion. But this culture, while nominallyreligious, is highly rationalistic in practice. Typical lag-effect, characteristic of all expanding cultures. And this Europo-American Sectorreally has an expanding culture. A hundred and fifty years ago, theinhabitants of this particular time-line didn't even know how to applysteam power; now they've begun to release nuclear energy, in a fewcrude forms. "

Tortha Karf whistled, softly. "That's quite a jump. There's a sectorthat'll be in for trouble, in the next few centuries. "

"That is realized, locally, sir. " Verkan Vall concentrated onrelighting his pipe, for a moment, then continued: "I would predictspace-travel on that sector within the next century. Maybe the nexthalf-century, at least to the Moon. And the art of taxidermy is veryhighly developed. Now, suppose some farmer shoots that thing; whatwould he do with it, sir?"

Tortha Karf grunted. "Nice logic, Vall. On a most uncomfortablepossibility. He'd have it mounted, and it'd be put in a museum, somewhere. And as soon as the first spaceship reaches Venus, andthey find those things in a wild state, they'll have the mountedspecimen identified. "

"Exactly. And then, instead of beating their brains about _where_their specimen came from, they'll begin asking _when_ it came from. They're quite capable of such reasoning, even now. "

"A hundred years isn't a particularly long time, " Tortha Karfconsidered. "I'll be retired, then, but you'll have my job, and it'llbe your headache. You'd better get this cleaned up, now, while it canbe handled. What are you going to do?"

[Illustration]

"I'm not sure, now, sir. I want a hypno-mech indoctrination, first. "Verkan Vall gestured toward the communicator on the desk. "May I?"he asked. 

"Certainly. " Tortha Karf slid the instrument across the desk. "Anything you want. "

"Thank you, sir. " Verkan Vall snapped on the code-index, found thesymbol he wanted, and then punched it on the keyboard. "Special Chief'sAssistant Verkan Vall, " he identified himself. "Speaking from office ofTortha Karf, Chief Paratime Police. I want a complete hypno-mech onVenusian nighthounds, emphasis on wild state, special emphasisdomesticated nighthounds reverted to wild state in terrestrialsurroundings, extra-special emphasis hunting techniques applicable tosame. The word 'nighthound' will do for trigger-symbol. " He turned toTortha Karf. "Can I take it here?"

Tortha Karf nodded, pointing to a row of booths along the far wallof the office. 

"Make set-up for wired transmission; I'll take it here. "

"Very well, sir; in fifteen minutes, " a voice replied out of thecommunicator. 

Verkan Vall slid the communicator back. "By the way, sir; I had ahitchhiker, on the way back. Carried him about a hundred or soparayears; picked him up about three hundred parayears after leavingmy other-line terminal. Nasty-looking fellow, in a black uniform;looked like one of these private-army storm troopers you find allthrough that sector. Armed, and hostile. I thought I'd have to rayhim, but he blundered outside the field almost at once. I have arecord, if you'd care to see it. "

"Yes, put it on, " Tortha Karf gestured toward the solidograph-projector. "It's set for miniature reproduction here on the desk; that be allright?"

Verkan Vall nodded, getting out the film and loading it into theprojector. When he pressed a button, a dome of radiance appeared onthe desk top; two feet in width and a foot in height. In the middleof this appeared a small solidograph image of the interior of theconveyor, showing the desk, and the control board, and the figureof Verkan Vall seated at it. The little figure of the storm trooperappeared, pistol in hand. The little Verkan Vall snatched up his tinyneedler; the storm trooper moved into one side of the dome andvanished. 

Verkan Vall flipped a switch and cut out the image. 

"Yes. I don't know what causes that, but it happens, now and then, "Tortha Karf said. "Usually at the beginning of a transposition. Iremember, when I was just a kid, about a hundred and fifty years ago--ahundred and thirty-nine, to be exact--I picked up a fellow on the FourthLevel, just about where you're operating, and dragged him a couple ofhundred parayears. I went back to find him and return him to his owntime-line, but before I could locate him, he'd been arrested by thelocal authorities as a suspicious character, and got himself shottrying to escape. I felt badly about that, but--" Tortha Karf shrugged. "Anything else happen on the trip?"

"I ran through a belt of intermittent nucleonic bombing on the SecondLevel. " Verkan Vall mentioned an approximate paratime location. 

"Aaagh! That Khiftan civilization--by courtesy so called!" Tortha Karfpulled a wry face. "I suppose the intra-family enmities of the HvadkaDynasty have reached critical mass again. They'll fool around tillthey blast themselves back to the stone age. "

"Intellectually, they're about there, now. I had to operate in thatsector, once--Oh, yes, another thing, sir. This rifle. " Verkan Vallpicked it up, emptied the magazine, and handed it to his superior. "The supplies office slipped up on this; it's not appropriate to myline of operation. It's a lovely rifle, but it's about two hundredpercent in advance of existing arms design on my line. It excited thecuriosity of a couple of police officers and a game-protector, whoshould be familiar with the weapons of their own time-line. I evadedby disclaiming ownership or intimate knowledge, and they seemedsatisfied, but it worried me. "

"Yes. That was made in our duplicating shops, here in Dhergabar. " TorthaKarf carried it to a photographic bench, behind his desk. "I'll have itchecked, while you're taking your hypno-mech. Want to exchange it forsomething authentic?"

"Why, no, sir. It's been identified to me, and I'd excite less suspicionwith it than I would if I abandoned it and mysteriously acquired anotherrifle. I just wanted a check, and Supplies warned to be more careful infuture. "

Tortha Karf nodded approvingly. The young Mavrad of Nerros was thinkingas a paratimer should. 

"What's the designation of your line, again?"

Verkan Vall told him. It was a short numerical term of six places, butit expressed a number of the order of ten to the fortieth power, exactto the last digit. Tortha Karf repeated it into his stenomemograph, with explanatory comment. 

"There seems to be quite a few things going wrong, in that area, "he said. "Let's see, now. "

He punched the designation on a keyboard; instantly, it appeared ona translucent screen in front of him. He punched another combination, and, at the top of the screen, under the number, there appeared:

 EVENTS, PAST ELAPSED FIVE YEARS. 

He punched again; below this line appeared the sub-heading:

 EVENTS INVOLVING PARATIME TRANSPOSITION. 

Another code-combination added a third line:

 (ATTRACTING PUBLIC NOTICE AMONG INHABITANTS. )

He pressed the "start"-button; the headings vanished, to be replaced bypage after page of print, succeeding one another on the screen as thetwo men read. They told strange and apparently disconnected stories--ofunexplained fires and explosions; of people vanishing without trace; ofunaccountable disasters to aircraft. There were many stories of anepidemic of mysterious disk-shaped objects seen in the sky, singly orin numbers. To each account was appended one or more reference-numbers. Sometimes Tortha Karf or Verkan Vall would punch one of these, and read, on an adjoining screen, the explanatory matter referred to. 

Finally Tortha Karf leaned back and lit a fresh cigarette. 

"Yes, indeed, Vall; very definitely we will have to take action in thematter of the runaway nighthound of the late Gavran Sarn, " he said. "I'd forgotten that that was the time-line onto which the _Ardrath_expedition launched those antigrav disks. If this extraterrestrialmonstrosity turns up, on the heels of that 'Flying Saucer' business, everybody above the order of intelligence of a cretin will suspectsome connection. "

"What really happened, in the _Ardrath_ matter?" Verkan Vall inquired. "I was on the Third Level, on that Luvarian Empire operation, at the time. "

"That's right; you missed that. Well, it was one of thesejoint-operation things. The Paratime Commission and the Space Patrolwere experimenting with a new technique for throwing a spaceship intoparatime. They used the cruiser _Ardrath_, Kalzarn Jann commanding. Wentinto space about halfway to the Moon and took up orbit, keeping on thesunlit side of the planet to avoid being observed. That was all right. But then, Captain Kalzarn ordered away a flight of antigrav disks, fullymanned, to take pictures, and finally authorized a landing in thewestern mountain range, Northern Continent, Minor Land-Mass. That'swhen the trouble started. "

He flipped the run-back switch, till he had recovered the page hewanted. Verkan Vall read of a Fourth Level aviator, in his littleairscrew-drive craft, sighting nine high-flying saucerlike objects. 

"That was how it began, " Tortha Karf told him. "Before long, as otherincidents of the same sort occurred, our people on that line begansending back to know what was going on. Naturally, from the differentdescriptions of these 'saucers', they recognized the objects as antigravlanding-disks from a spaceship. So I went to the Commission and raisedatomic blazes about it, and the _Ardrath_ was ordered to confineoperations to the lower areas of the Fifth Level. Then our peopleon that time-line went to work with corrective action. Here. "

He wiped the screen and then began punching combinations. Page afterpage appeared, bearing accounts of people who had claimed to have seenthe mysterious disks, and each report was more fantastic than the last. 

"The standard smother-out technique, " Verkan Vall grinned. "I onlyheard a little talk about the 'Flying Saucers', and all of that was injoke. In that order of culture, you can always discredit one true storyby setting up ten others, palpably false, parallel to it--Wasn't thatthe time-line the Tharmax Trading Corporation almost lost theirparatime license on?"

"That's right; it was! They bought up all the cigarettes, and caused aconspicuous shortage, after Fourth Level cigarettes had been introducedon this line and had become popular. They should have spread theirpurchases over a number of lines, and kept them within the localsupply-demand frame. And they also got into trouble with the localgovernment for selling unrationed petrol and automobile tires. We hadto send in a special-operations group, and they came closer to havingto engage in out-time local politics than I care to think of. " TorthaKarf quoted a line from a currently popular song about the sorrows ofa policeman's life. "We're jugglers, Vall; trying to keep our tradersand sociological observers and tourists and plain idiots like the lateGavran Sarn out of trouble; trying to prevent panics and disturbancesand dislocations of local economy as a result of our operations; tryingto keep out of out-time politics--and, at all times, at all costs andhazards, by all means, guarding the secret of paratime transposition. Sometimes I wish Ghaldron Karf and Hesthor Ghrom had strangled intheir cradles!"

Verkan Vall shook his head. "No, chief, " he said. "You don't mean that;not really, " he said. "We've been paratiming for the past ten thousandyears. When the Ghaldron-Hesthor trans-temporal field was discovered, our ancestors had pretty well exhausted the resources of this planet. We had a world population of half a billion, and it was all they coulddo to keep alive. After we began paratime transposition, our populationclimbed to ten billion, and there it stayed for the last eight thousandyears. Just enough of us to enjoy our planet and the other planets ofthe system to the fullest; enough of everything for everybody thatnobody needs fight anybody for anything. We've tapped the resources ofthose other worlds on other time-lines, a little here, a little there, and not enough to really hurt anybody. We've left our mark in a fewplaces--the Dakota Badlands, and the Gobi, on the Fourth Level, forinstance--but we've done no great damage to any of them. "

"Except the time they blew up half the Southern Island Continent, overabout five hundred parayears on the Third Level, " Tortha Karf mentioned. 

"Regrettable accident, to be sure, " Verkan Vall conceded. "And lookhow much we've learned from the experiences of those other time-lines. During the Crisis, after the Fourth Interplanetary War, we might haveadopted Palnar Sarn's 'Dictatorship of the Chosen' scheme, if wehadn't seen what an exactly similar scheme had done to the Jak-HakkaCivilization, on the Second Level. When Palnar Sarn was told aboutthat, he went into paratime to see for himself, and when he returned, he renounced his proposal in horror. "

Tortha Karf nodded. He wouldn't be making any mistake in turning hispost over to the Mavrad of Nerros on his retirement. 

"Yes, Vall; I know, " he said. "But when you've been at this desk as longas I have, you'll have a sour moment or two, now and then, too. "

 * * * * *

A blue light flashed over one of the booths across the room. Verkan Vallgot to his feet, removing his coat and hanging it on the back of hischair, and crossed the room, rolling up his left shirt sleeve. Therewas a relaxer-chair in the booth, with a blue plastic helmet above it. He glanced at the indicator-screen to make sure he was getting theindoctrination he called for, and then sat down in the chair and loweredthe helmet over his head, inserting the ear plugs and fastening the chinstrap. Then he touched his left arm with an injector which was lying onthe arm of the chair, and at the same time flipped the starter switch. 

Soft, slow music began to chant out of the earphones. The insidiousfingers of the drug blocked off his senses, one by one. The musicdiminished, and the words of the hypnotic formula lulled him to sleep. 

He woke, hearing the lively strains of dance music. For a while, he layrelaxed. Then he snapped off the switch, took out the ear plugs, removedthe helmet and rose to his feet. Deep in his subconscious mind was theentire body of knowledge about the Venusian nighthound. He mentallypronounced the word, and at once it began flooding into his consciousmind. He knew the animal's evolutionary history, its anatomy, itscharacteristics, its dietary and reproductive habits, how it hunted, how it fought its enemies, how it eluded pursuit, and how best it couldbe tracked down and killed. He nodded. Already, a plan for dealing withGavran Sarn's renegade pet was taking shape in his mind. 

He picked a plastic cup from the dispenser, filled it from a cooler-tapwith amber-colored spiced wine, and drank, tossing the cup into thedisposal-bin. He placed a fresh injector on the arm of the chair, readyfor the next user of the booth. Then he emerged, glancing at his FourthLevel wrist watch and mentally translating to the First Leveltime-scale. Three hours had passed; there had been more to learn abouthis quarry than he had expected. 

Tortha Karf was sitting behind his desk, smoking a cigarette. It seemedas though he had not moved since Verkan Vall had left him, though thespecial agent knew that he had dined, attended several conferences, and done many other things. 

"I checked up on your hitchhiker, Vall, " the chief said. "We won'tbother about him. He's a member of something called the ChristianAvengers--one of those typical Europo-American race-and-religious hategroups. He belongs in a belt that is the outcome of the Hitler victoryof 1940, whatever that was. Something unpleasant, I daresay. We don'towe him anything; people of that sort should be stepped on, likecockroaches. And he won't make any more trouble on the line where youdropped him than they have there already. It's in a belt of completesocial and political anarchy; somebody probably shot him as soon ashe emerged, because he wasn't wearing the right sort of a uniform. Nineteen-forty what, by the way?"

"Elapsed years since the birth of some religious leader, " Verkan Vallexplained. "And did you find out about my rifle?"

"Oh, yes. It's reproduction of something that's called a Sharp's Model'37 . 235 Ultraspeed-Express. Made on an adjoining paratime belt by acompany that went out of business sixty-seven years ago, elapsed time, on your line of operation. What made the difference was the Second WarBetween The States. I don't know what that was, either--I'm not too wellup on Fourth Level history--but whatever, your line of operation didn'thave it. Probably just as well for them, though they very likely hadsomething else, as bad or worse. I put in a complaint to Supplies aboutit, and got you some more ammunition and reloading tools. Now, tell mewhat you're going to do about this nighthound business. "

Tortha Karf was silent for a while, after Verkan Vall had finished. 

"You're taking some awful chances, Vall, " he said, at length. "The wayyou plan doing it, the advantages will all be with the nighthound. Thosethings can see as well at night as you can in daylight. I suppose youknow that, though; you're the nighthound specialist, now. "

"Yes. But they're accustomed to the Venus hotland marshes; it's been dryweather for the last two weeks, all over the northeastern section of theNorthern Continent. I'll be able to hear it, long before it gets closeto me. And I'll be wearing an electric headlamp. When I snap that on, it'll be dazzled, for a moment. "

"Well, as I said, you're the nighthound specialist. There's thecommunicator; order anything you need. " He lit a fresh cigarette fromthe end of the old one before crushing it out. "But be careful, Vall. It took me close to forty years to make a paratimer out of you; Idon't want to have to repeat the process with somebody else beforeI can retire. "

 * * * * *

The grass was wet as Verkan Vall--who reminded himself that here hewas called Richard Lee--crossed the yard from the farmhouse to theramshackle barn, in the early autumn darkness. It had been rainingthat morning when the strato-rocket from Dhergabar had landed him atthe Hagraban Synthetics Works, on the First Level; unaffected by theprobabilities of human history, the same rain had been coming down onthe old Kinchwalter farm, near Rutter's Fort, on the Fourth Level. And it had persisted all day, in a slow, deliberate drizzle. 

He didn't like that. The woods would be wet, muffling his quarry'sfootsteps, and canceling his only advantage over the night-prowler hehunted. He had no idea, however, of postponing the hunt. If anything, the rain had made it all the more imperative that the nighthound bekilled at once. At this season, a falling temperature would speedilyfollow. The nighthound, a creature of the hot Venus marshes, wouldsuffer from the cold, and, taught by years of domestication to findwarmth among human habitations, it would invade some isolated farmhouse, or, worse, one of the little valley villages. If it were not killedtonight, the incident he had come to prevent would certainly occur. 

Going to the barn, he spread an old horse blanket on the seat of thejeep, laid his rifle on it, and then backed the jeep outside. Then hetook off his coat, removing his pipe and tobacco from the pockets, andspread it on the wet grass. He unwrapped a package and took out a smallplastic spray-gun he had brought with him from the First Level, aimingit at the coat and pressing the trigger until it blew itself empty. A sickening, rancid fetor tainted the air--the scent of the giantpoison-roach of Venus, the one creature for which the nighthound borean inborn, implacable hatred. It was because of this compulsive urge toattack and kill the deadly poison-roach that the first human settlerson Venus, long millennia ago, had domesticated the ugly and savagenighthound. He remembered that the Gavran family derived their titlefrom their vast Venus hotlands estates; that Gavran Sarn, the man whohad brought this thing to the Fourth Level, had been born on the innerplanet. When Verkan Vall donned that coat, he would become his ownliving bait for the murderous fury of the creature he sought. At themoment, mastering his queasiness and putting on the coat, he objectedless to that danger than to the hideous stench of the scent, to obtainwhich a valuable specimen had been sacrificed at the Dhergabar Museumof Extraterrestrial Zoology, the evening before. 

Carrying the wrapper and the spray-gun to an outside fireplace, hesnapped his lighter to them and tossed them in. They were highlyinflammable, blazing up and vanishing in a moment. He tested theelectric headlamp on the front of his cap; checked his rifle; drewthe heavy revolver, an authentic product of his line of operation, and flipped the cylinder out and in again. Then he got into the jeepand drove away. 

For half an hour, he drove quickly along the valley roads. Now and then, he passed farmhouses, and dogs, puzzled and angered by the alien scenthis coat bore, barked furiously. At length, he turned into a back road, and from this to the barely discernible trace of an old log road. Therain had stopped, and, in order to be ready to fire in any direction atany time, he had removed the top of the jeep. Now he had to crouch belowthe windshield to avoid overhanging branches. Once three deer--a buckand two does--stopped in front of him and stared for a moment, thenbounded away with a flutter of white tails. 

He was driving slowly, now; laying behind him a reeking trail of scent. There had been another stock-killing, the night before, while he hadbeen on the First Level. The locality of this latest depredation hadconfirmed his estimate of the beast's probable movements, and indicatedwhere it might be prowling, tonight. He was certain that it wassomewhere near; sooner or later, it would pick up the scent. 

Finally, he stopped, snapping out his lights. He had chosen this spotcarefully, while studying the Geological Survey map, that afternoon;he was on the grade of an old railroad line, now abandoned and itstrack long removed, which had served the logging operations of fiftyyears ago. On one side, the mountain slanted sharply upward; on theother, it fell away sharply. If the nighthound were below him, itwould have to climb that forty-five degree slope, and could not avoiddislodging loose stones, or otherwise making a noise. He would get outon that side; if the nighthound were above him, the jeep would protecthim when it charged. He got to the ground, thumbing off the safety ofhis rifle, and an instant later he knew that he had made a mistakewhich could easily cost him his life; a mistake from which neitherhis comprehensive logic nor his hypnotically acquired knowledge ofthe beast's habits had saved him. 

As he stepped to the ground, facing toward the front of the jeep, he heard a low, whining cry behind him, and a rush of padded feet. He whirled, snapping on the headlamp with his left hand and thrustingout his rifle pistol-wise in his right. For a split second, he saw thecharging animal, its long, lizardlike head split in a toothy grin, its talon-tipped fore-paws extended. 

He fired, and the bullet went wild. The next instant, the rifle wasknocked from his hand. Instinctively, he flung up his left arm to shieldhis eyes. Claws raked his left arm and shoulder, something struck himheavily along the left side, and his cap-light went out as he droppedand rolled under the jeep, drawing in his legs and fumbling under hiscoat for the revolver. 

In that instant, he knew what had gone wrong. His plan had been entirelytoo much of a success. The nighthound had winded him as he had driven upthe old railroad-grade, and had followed. Its best running speed hadbeen just good enough to keep it a hundred or so feet behind the jeep, and the motor-noise had covered the padding of its feet. In the fewmoments between stopping the little car and getting out, the nighthoundhad been able to close the distance and spring upon him. 

[Illustration]

 * * * * *

It was characteristic of First-Level mentality that Verkan Vall wastedno moments on self-reproach or panic. While he was still rolling underhis jeep, his mind had been busy with plans to retrieve the situation. Something touched the heel of one boot, and he froze his leg intoimmobility, at the same time trying to get the big Smith & Wesson free. The shoulder-holster, he found, was badly torn, though made of theheaviest skirting-leather, and the spring which retained the weapon inplace had been wrenched and bent until he needed both hands to draw. The eight-inch slashing-claw of the nighthound's right intermediary limbhad raked him; only the instinctive motion of throwing up his arm, andthe fact that he wore the revolver in a shoulder-holster, had savedhis life. 

The nighthound was prowling around the jeep, whining frantically. It wasbadly confused. It could see quite well, even in the close darkness ofthe starless night; its eyes were of a nature capable of perceivinginfrared radiations as light. There were plenty of these; the jeep'sengine, lately running on four-wheel drive, was quite hot. Had he beenstanding alone, especially on this raw, chilly night, Verkan Vall'sown body-heat would have lighted him up like a jack-o'-lantern. Now, however, the hot engine above him masked his own radiations. Moreover, the poison-roach scent on his coat was coming up through the floor boardand mingling with the scent on the seat, yet the nighthound couldn'tfind the two-and-a-half foot insectlike thing that should have beenproducing it. Verkan Vall lay motionless, wondering how long the nextmove would be in coming. Then he heard a thud above him, followed by afurious tearing as the nighthound ripped the blanket and began rendingat the seat cushion. 

"Hope it gets a paw-full of seat-springs, " Verkan Vall commentedmentally. He had already found a stone about the size of his two fists, and another slightly smaller, and had put one in each of the sidepockets of the coat. Now he slipped his revolver into his waist-beltand writhed out of the coat, shedding the ruined shoulder-holster atthe same time. Wriggling on the flat of his back, he squirmed betweenthe rear wheels, until he was able to sit up, behind the jeep. Then, swinging the weighted coat, he flung it forward, over the nighthoundand the jeep itself, at the same time drawing his revolver. 

Immediately, the nighthound, lured by the sudden movement of theprincipal source of the scent, jumped out of the jeep and bounded afterthe coat, and there was considerable noise in the brush on the lowerside of the railroad grade. At once, Verkan Vall swarmed into the jeepand snapped on the lights. 

His stratagem had succeeded beautifully. The stinking coat had landedon the top of a small bush, about ten feet in front of the jeep andten feet from the ground. The nighthound, erect on its haunches, wasreaching out with its front paws to drag it down, and slashing angrilyat it with its single-clawed intermediary limbs. Its back was toVerkan Vall. 

His sights clearly defined by the lights in front of him, the paratimercentered them on the base of the creature's spine, just above itssecondary shoulders, and carefully squeezed the trigger. The big . 357Magnum bucked in his hand and belched flame and sound--if only theseFourth Level weapons weren't so confoundedly boisterous!--and thenighthound screamed and fell. Recocking the revolver, Verkan Vall waitedfor an instant, then nodded in satisfaction. The beast's spine had beensmashed, and its hind quarters, and even its intermediary fighting limbshad been paralyzed. He aimed carefully for a second shot and fired intothe base of the thing's skull. It quivered and died. 

 * * * * *

Getting a flashlight, he found his rifle, sticking muzzle-down in themud a little behind and to the right of the jeep, and swore briefly inthe local Fourth Level idiom, for Verkan Vall was a man who loved goodweapons, be they sigma-ray needlers, neutron-disruption blasters, orthe solid-missile projectors of the lower levels. By this time, hewas feeling considerable pain from the claw-wounds he had received. He peeled off his shirt and tossed it over the hood of the jeep. 

Tortha Karf had advised him to carry a needler, or a blaster, or aneurostat-gun, but Verkan Vall had been unwilling to take such arms ontothe Fourth Level. In event of mishap to himself, it would be all tooeasy for such a weapon to fall into the hands of someone able to deducefrom it scientific principles too far in advance of the general FourthLevel culture. But there had been one First Level item which he hadpermitted himself, mainly because, suitably packaged, it was not readilyidentifiable as such. Digging a respectable Fourth-Level leatherettecase from under the seat, he opened it and took out a pint bottle with ared poison-label, and a towel. Saturating the towel with the contents ofthe bottle, he rubbed every inch of his torso with it, so as not to misseven the smallest break made in his skin by the septic claws of thenighthound. Whenever the lotion-soaked towel touched raw skin, a painlike the burn of a hot iron shot through him; before he was through, hewas in agony. Satisfied that he had disinfected every wound, he droppedthe towel and clung weakly to the side of the jeep. He grunted out astring of English oaths, and capped them with an obscene Spanishblasphemy he had picked up among the Fourth Level inhabitants of hisisland home of Nerros, to the south, and a thundering curse in the nameof Mogga, Fire-God of Dool, in a Third-Level tongue. He mentioned Fasif, Great God of Khift, in a manner which would have got him an acid-bath ifthe Khiftan priests had heard him. He alluded to the baroque amatorypractices of the Third-Level Illyalla people, and soothed himself, inthe classical Dar-Halma tongue, with one of those rambling genealogicalinsults favored in the Indo-Turanian Sector of the Fourth Level. 

By this time, the pain had subsided to an over-all smarting itch. He'dhave to bear with that until his work was finished and he could enjoy ahot bath. He got another bottle out of the first-aid kit--a flat pint, labeled "Old Overholt, " containing a locally-manufactured specific forinward and subjective wounds--and medicated himself copiously from it, corking it and slipping it into his hip pocket against future need. Hegathered up the ruined shoulder-holster and threw it under the backseat. He put on his shirt. Then he went and dragged the dead nighthoundonto the grade by its stumpy tail. 

It was an ugly thing, weighing close to two hundred pounds, withpowerfully muscled hind legs which furnished the bulk of itsmotive-power, and sturdy three-clawed front legs. Its secondary limbs, about a third of the way back from its front shoulders, were long andslender; normally, they were carried folded closely against the body, and each was armed with a single curving claw. The revolver-bullet hadgone in at the base of the skull and emerged under the jaw; the headwas relatively undamaged. Verkan Vall was glad of that; he wanted thathead for the trophy-room of his home on Nerros. Grunting and straining, he got the thing into the back of the jeep, and flung his almostshredded tweed coat over it. 

A last look around assured him that he had left nothing unaccountableor suspicious. The brush was broken where the nighthound had beentearing at the coat; a bear might have done that. There were splashesof the viscid stuff the thing had used for blood, but they wouldn't bethere long. Terrestrial rodents liked nighthound blood, and the woodswere full of mice. He climbed in under the wheel, backed, turned, anddrove away. 

 * * * * *

Inside the paratime-transposition dome, Verkan Vall turned from the bodyof the nighthound, which he had just dragged in, and considered theinert form of another animal--a stump-tailed, tuft-eared, tawny Canadalynx. That particular animal had already made two paratimetranspositions; captured in the vast wilderness of Fifth-Level NorthAmerica, it had been taken to the First Level and placed in theDhergabar Zoological Gardens, and then, requisitioned on the authorityof Tortha Karf, it had been brought to the Fourth Level by Verkan Vall. It was almost at the end of all its travels. 

Verkan Vall prodded the supine animal with the toe of his boot; ittwitched slightly. Its feet were cross-bound with straps, but when hesaw that the narcotic was wearing off, Verkan Vall snatched a syringe, parted the fur at the base of its neck, and gave it an injection. Aftera moment, he picked it up in his arms and carried it out to the jeep. 

"All right, pussy cat, " he said, placing it under the rear seat, "thisis the one-way ride. The way you're doped up, it won't hurt a bit. "

He went back and rummaged in the debris of the long-deserted barn. Hepicked up a hoe, and discarded it as too light. An old plowshare wastoo unhandy. He considered a grate-bar from a heating furnace, and thenhe found the poleax, lying among a pile of wormeaten boards. Its handlehad been shortened, at some time, to about twelve inches, converting itinto a heavy hatchet. He weighed it, and tried it on a block of wood, and then, making sure that the secret door was closed, he went outagain and drove off. 

An hour later, he returned. Opening the secret door, he carried theruined shoulder holster, and the straps that had bound the bobcat'sfeet, and the ax, now splotched with blood and tawny cat-hairs, intothe dome. Then he closed the secret room, and took a long drink fromthe bottle on his hip. 

The job was done. He would take a hot bath, and sleep in the farmhousetill noon, and then he would return to the First Level. Maybe TorthaKarf would want him to come back here for a while. The situation on thistime-line was far from satisfactory, even if the crisis threatened byGavran Sarn's renegade pet had been averted. The presence of a chief'sassistant might be desirable. 

At least, he had a right to expect a short vacation. He thought of thelittle redhead at the Hagraban Synthetics Works. What was her name?Something Kara--Morvan Kara; that was it. She'd be coming off shiftabout the time he'd make First Level, tomorrow afternoon. 

The claw-wounds were still smarting vexatiously. A hot bath, and anight's sleep--He took another drink, lit his pipe, picked up his rifleand started across the yard to the house. 

 * * * * *

Private Zinkowski cradled the telephone and got up from the desk, stretching. He left the orderly-room and walked across the hall tothe recreation room, where the rest of the boys were loafing. Sergeant Haines, in a languid gin-rummy game with Corporal Conner, a sheriff's deputy, and a mechanic from the service station downthe road, looked up. 

"Well, Sarge, I think we can write off those stock-killings, " theprivate said. 

"Yeah?" The sergeant's interest quickened. 

"Yeah. I think the whatzit's had it. I just got a buzz from therailroad cops at Logansport. It seems a track-walker found a deadbobcat on the Logan River branch, about a mile or so below MMY signaltower. Looks like it tangled with that night freight up-river, andcame off second best. It was near chopped to hamburger. "

"MMY signal tower; that's right below Yoder's Crossing, " the sergeantconsidered. "The Strawmyer farm night-before-last, the Amrine farmlast night--Yeah, that would be about right. "

"That'll suit Steve Parker; bobcats aren't protected, so it's not histrouble. And they're not a violation of state law, so it's none of ourworry, " Conner said. "Your deal, isn't it, Sarge?"

"Yeah. Wait a minute. " The sergeant got to his feet. "I promised SamKane, the AP man at Logansport, that I'd let him in on anything new. "He got up and started for the phone. "Phantom Killer!" He blew animpolite noise. 

"Well, it was a lot of excitement, while it lasted, " the deputy sheriffsaid. "Just like that Flying Saucer thing. "

THE END