Transcriber's note. 

 This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction Magazine February and March 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed. 

 TIME CRIME

 BY H. BEAM PIPER

_First of Two Parts. The Paratime Police had a real headache thistime! Tracing one man in a population of millions is easy--comparedto finding one gang hiding out on one of billions of probability lines!_

 Illustrated by Freas

[Illustration:]

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION

Kiro Soran, the guard captain, stood in the shadow of the verandaroof, his white cloak thrown back to display the scarlet lining. Herubbed his palm reflectively on the checkered butt of his revolver andwatched the four men at the table. 

"And ten tens are a hundred, " one of the clerks in blue jackets said, adding another stack to the pile of gold coins. 

"Nineteen hundreds, " one of the pair in dirty striped robes agreed, taking a stone from the box in front of him and throwing it away. Onlyone stone remained. "One more hundred to pay. "

One of the blue-jacketed plantation clerks made a tally mark; hiscompanion counted out coins, ten and ten and ten. 

Dosu Golan, the plantation manager, tapped impatiently on his polishedboot leg with a thin riding whip. 

[Illustration:]

"I don't like this, " he said, in another and entirely differentlanguage. "I know, chattel slavery's an established custom on thissector, and we have to conform to local usages, but it sickens me tohave to haggle with these swine over the price of human beings. Onthe Zarkantha Sector, we used nothing but free wage-labor. "

"Migratory workers, " the guard captain said. "Humanitarianconsiderations aside, I can think of a lot better ways of meeting thelabor problem on a fruit plantation than by buying slaves you need forthree months a year and have to feed and quarter and clothe and doctorthe whole twelve. "

"Twenty hundreds of _obus_, " the clerk who had been counting the moneysaid. "That is the payment, is it not, Coru-hin-Irigod?"

"That is the payment, " the slave dealer replied. 

The clerk swept up the remaining coins, and his companion took themover and put them in an iron-bound chest, snapping the padlock. Thetwo guards who had been loitering at one side slung their rifles andpicked up the chest, carrying it into the plantation house. The slavedealer and his companion arose, putting their money into a leatherbag; Coru-hin-Irigod turned and bowed to the two men in white cloaks. 

"The slaves are yours, noble lords, " he said. 

Across the plantation yard, six more men in striped robes, withcarbines slung across their backs, approached; with them came anotherman in a hooded white cloak, and two guards in blue jackets and redcaps, with bayoneted rifles. The man in white and his armed attendantscame toward the house; the six Calera slavers continued across theyard to where their horses were picketed. 

"If I do not offend the noble lords, then, " Coru-hin-Irigod said, "Ibeg their sufferance to depart. I and my men have far to ride if wewould reach Careba by nightfall. The Lord, the Great Lord, the LordGod Safar watch between us until we meet again. "

Urado Alatana, the labor foreman, came up onto the porch as the twoslavers went down. 

"Have a good look at them, Radd?" the guard captain asked. 

"You think I'm crazy enough to let those bandits out of here with twothousand _obus_--forty thousand Paratemporal Exchange Units--of theCompany's money without knowing what we're getting?" the otherparried. "They're all right--nice, clean, healthy-looking lot. I dideverything but take them apart and inspect the pieces while they werebeing unshackled at the stockade. I'd like to know where thisCoru-hin-Whatshisname got them, though. They're not local stuff. Lotdarker, and they're jabbering among themselves in some lingo I neverheard before. A few are wearing some rags of clothing, and they haveodd-looking sandals. I noticed that most of them showed marks ofrecent whipping. That may mean they're troublesome, or it may justmean that these Caleras are a lot of sadistic brutes. "

"Poor devils!" The man called Dosu Golan was evidently hoping thathe'd never catch himself talking about fellow humans like that. Theguard captain turned to him. 

"Coming to have a look at them, Doth?" he asked. 

"You go, Kirv; I'll see them later. "

"Still not able to look the Company's property in the face?" thecaptain asked gently. "You'll not get used to it any sooner than now. "

"I suppose you're right. " For a moment Dosu Golan watchedCoru-hin-Irigod and his followers canter out of the yard and breakinto a gallop on the road beyond. Then he tucked his whip under hisarm. "All right, then. Let's go see them. "

The labor foreman went into the house; the manager and the guardcaptain went down the steps and set out across the yard. A bigslat-sided wagon, drawn by four horses, driven by an old slave in ablue smock and a thing like a sunbonnet, rumbled past, loaded withnewly-picked oranges. Blue woodsmoke was beginning to rise from thestoves at the open kitchen and a couple of slaves were noisilychopping wood. Then they came to the stockade of close-set pointedpoles. A guard sergeant in a red-trimmed blue jacket, armed with arevolver, met them with a salute which Kiro Soran returned: heunfastened the gate and motioned four or five riflemen into positionsfrom which they could fire in between the poles in case the slavesturned on their new owners. 

There seemed little danger of that, though Kiro Soran kept his handclose to the butt of his revolver. The slaves, an even hundred ofthem, squatted under awnings out of the sun, or stood in line to drinkat the water-butt. They furtively watched the two men who had enteredamong them, as though expecting blows or kicks; when none wereforthcoming, they relaxed slightly. As the labor foreman had said, they were clean and looked healthy. They were all nearly naked; therewere about as many women as men, but no children or old people. 

"Radd's right, " the captain told the new manager. "They're not local. Much darker skins, and different face-structure; faces wedge-shapedinstead of oval, and differently shaped noses, and brown eyes insteadof black. I've seen people like that, somewhere, but--"

He fell silent. A suspicion, utterly fantastic, had begun to form inhis mind, and he stepped closer to a group of a dozen-odd, the managerfollowing him. One or two had been unmercifully lashed, not long ago, and all bore a few lash-marks. Odd sort of marks, more likeburn-blisters than welts. He'd have to have the Company doctor look atthem. Then he caught their speech, and the suspicion was converted tocertainty. 

"These are not like the others: they wear fine garments, and walkproudly. They look stern, but not cruel. They are the real mastershere; the others are but servants. "

He grasped the manager's arm and drew him aside. 

"You know that language?" he asked. When the man called Dosu Golanshook his head, he continued: "That's Kharanda; it's a dialect spokenby a people in the Ganges Valley, in India, on the Kholghoor Sector ofthe Fourth Level. "

Dosu Golan blinked, and his face went blank for a moment. 

"You mean they're from outtime?" he demanded. "Are you sure?"

"I did two years on Fourth Level Kholghoor with the Paratime Police, before I took this job, " the man called Kiro Soran replied. "Andanother thing. Those lash-marks were made with some kind of anelectric whip. Not these rawhide quirts the Caleras use. "

It took the plantation manager all of five seconds to add that up. Theanswer frightened him. 

"Kirv, this is going to make a simply hideous uproar, all the way upto Home Time Line main office, " he said. "I don't know what I'm goingto do--"

"Well, I know what I have to do. " The captain raised his voice, usingthe local language: "Sergeant! Run to the guardhouse, and tellSergeant Adarada to mount up twenty of his men and take off afterthose Caleras who sold us these slaves. They're headed down the roadtoward the river. Tell him to bring them all back, and especiallytheir chief, Coru-hin-Irigod, and him I want alive and able to answerquestions. And then get the white-cloak lord Urado Alatena, and comeback here. "

"Yes, captain. " The guards were all Yarana people; they dislikedCaleras intensely. The sergeant threw a salute, turned, and ran. 

"Next, we'll have to isolate these slaves, " Kiro Soran said. "You'dbetter make a full report to the Company as soon as possible. I'mgoing to transpose to Police Terminal Time Line and make my report tothe Sector-Regional Subchief. Then--"

"Now wait a moment, Kirv, " Dosu Golan protested. "After all, I'm themanager, even if I am new here. It's up to me to make the decisions--"

Kiro Soran shook his head. "Sorry, Doth. Not this one, " he said. "Youknow the terms under which I was hired by the Company. I'm still afield agent of the Paratime Police, and I'm reporting back on duty assoon as I can transpose to Police Terminal. Look; here are a hundredmen and women who have been shifted from one time-line, on oneparatemporal sector of probability, to another. Why, the world fromwhich these people came doesn't even exist in this space-timecontinuum. There's only one way they could have gotten here, andthat's the way we did--in a Ghaldron-Hesthor paratemporaltransposition field. You can carry it on from there as far as youlike, but the only thing it adds up to is a case for the ParatimePolice. You had better include in your report mention that I'vereverted to police status; my Company pay ought to be stopped as ofnow. And until somebody who outranks me is sent here, I'm in completecharge. Paratime Transposition Code, Section XVII, Article 238. "

The plantation manager nodded. Kiro Soran knew how he must feel; helaid a hand gently on the younger man's shoulder. 

"You understand how it is, Doth; this is the only thing I can do. "

"I understand, Kirv. Count on me for absolutely anything. " He lookedat the brown-skinned slaves, and lines of horror and loathing appearedaround his mouth. "To think that some of our own people would do athing like this! I hope you can catch the devils! Are you transposingout, now?"

"In a few minutes. While I'm gone, have the doctor look at thosewhip-injuries. Those things could get infected. Fortunately, he's oneof our own people. "

"Yes, of course. And I'll have these slaves isolated, and if Adaradabrings back Coru-hin-Irigod and his gang before you get back, I'llhave them locked up and waiting for you. I suppose you want tonarco-hypnotize and question the whole lot, slaves and slavers?"

The labor foreman, known locally as Urado Alatena, entered thestockade. 

"What's wrong, Kirv?" he asked. 

The Paratime Police agent told him, briefly. The labor foremanwhistled, threw a quick glance at the nearest slaves, and nodded. 

"I knew there was something funny about them, " he said. "Doth, what asimply beastly thing to happen, two days after you take charge here!"

"Not his fault, " the Paratime Police agent said. "I'm the one theCompany'll be sore at, but I'd rather have them down on me rather thanold Tortha Karf. Well, sit on the lid till I get back, " he told bothof them. "We'll need some kind of a story for the locals. Let'ssee--Explain to the guards, in the hearing of some of the moretalkative slaves, that these slaves are from the Asian mainland, thatthey are of a people friendly to our people, and that they werekidnaped by pirates, our enemies. That ought to explain everythingsatisfactorily. "

On his way back to the plantation house, he saw a clump of localslaves staring curiously at the stockade, and noticed that the guardshad unslung their rifles and fixed their bayonets. None of them hadany idea, of course, of what had happened, but they all seemed toknow, by some sort of ESP, that something was seriously wrong. It wasgoing to get worse, too, when strangers began arriving, apparentlyfrom nowhere, at the plantation. 

 * * * * *

Verkan Vall waited until the small, dark-eyed woman across thecircular table had helped herself from one of the bowls on therevolving disk in the middle, then rotated it to bring the platter ofcold boar-ham around to himself. 

"Want some of this, Dalla?" he asked, transferring a slice of ham anda spoonful of wine sauce to his plate. 

"No, I'll have some of the venison, " the black-haired girl beside himsaid. "And some of the pickled beans. We'll be getting our fill ofpork, for the next month. "

"I thought the Dwarma Sector people were vegetarians, " Jandar Jard, the theatrical designer, said. "Most nonviolent peoples are, aren'tthey?"

"Well, the Dwarma people haven't any specific taboo against takinglife, " Bronnath Zara, the dark-eyed woman in the brightly coloredgown, told him. "They're just utterly noncombative, nonaggressive. When I was on the Dwarma Sector, there was a horrible scandal at thevillage where I was staying. It seems that a farmer and a meat butcherfought over the price of a pig. They actually raised their voices andshouted contradictions at each other. That happened two years before, and people were still talking about it. "

"I didn't think they had any money, either, " Verkan Vall's wife, Hadron Dalla, said. 

"They don't, " Zara said. "It's all barter and trade. What are you andVall going to use for a visible means of support, while you're there?"

"Oh, I have my mandolin, and I've learned all the traditional Dwarmasongs by hypno-mech, " Dalla said. "And Transtime Tours is fitting Vallout with a bag of tools; he's going to do repair work and carpentry. "

"Oh, good; you'll be welcome anywhere, " Zara, the sculptress, said. "They're always glad to entertain a singer, and for people who do thefine decorative work they do, they're the most incompetent practicalmechanics I've ever seen or heard of. You're going to travel fromvillage to village?"

"Yes. The cover-story is that we're lovers who have left our villagein order not to make Vall's former wife unhappy by our presence, "Dalla said. 

"Oh, good! That's entirely in the Dwarma romantic tradition, " BronnathZara approved. "Ordinarily, you know, they don't like to travel. Theyhave a saying: 'Happy are the trees, they abide in their own place;sad are the winds, forever they wander. ' But that'll be a fineexplanation. "

Thalvan Dras, the big man with the black beard and the long red coatand cloth-of-gold sash who lounged in the host's seat, laughed. 

"I can just see Vall mending pots, and Dalla playing that mandolin andsinging, " he said. "At least, you'll be getting away from police work. I don't suppose they have anything like police on the Dwarma Sector?"

"Oh, no; they don't even have any such concept, " Bronnath Zara said. "When somebody does something wrong, his neighbors all come and talkto him about it till he gets ashamed, then they all forgive him andhave a feast. They're lovely people, so kind and gentle. But you'llget awfully tired of them in about a month. They have absolutely norespect for anybody's privacy. In fact, it seems slightly indecent tothem for anybody to want privacy. "

One of Thalvan Dras' human servants came into the room, coughedapologetically, and said:

"A visiphone-call for His Valor, the Mavrad of Nerros. "

Vall went on nibbling ham and wine sauce; the servant repeated theannouncement a trifle more loudly. 

[Illustration:]

"Vall, you're being paged!" Thalvan Dras told him, with a touch ofimpatience. 

Verkan Vall looked blank for an instant, then grinned. It had been solong since he had even bothered to think about that antiquated titleof nobility--

"Vall's probably forgotten that he has a title, " a girl across thetable, wearing an almost transparent gown and nothing else, laughed. 

"That's something the Mavrad of Mnirna and Thalvabar never forgets, "Jandar Jard drawled, with what, in a woman, would have beencattishness. 

Thalvan Dras gave him a hastily repressed look of venomous anger, thensaid something, more to Verkan Vall than to Jandar Jard, about titlesof nobility being the marks of social position and responsibilitywhich their bearers should never forget. That jab, Vall thought, following the servant out of the room, had been a mistake on Jard'spart. A music-drama, for which he had designed the settings, was dueto open here in Dhergabar in another ten days. Thalvan Dras wouldcherish spite, and a word from the Mavrad of Mnirna and Thalvabarwould set a dozen critics to disparaging Jandar's work. On the otherhand, maybe it had been smart of Jandar Jard to antagonize ThalvanDras; for every critic who bowed slavishly to the wealthy nobleman, there were at least two more who detested him unutterably, and theywould rush to Jandar Jard's defense, and in the ensuing uproar, thesettings would get more publicity than the drama itself. 

 * * * * *

In the visiphone booth, Vall found a girl in a green blouse, with theParatime Police insigne on her shoulder, looking out of the screen. The wall behind her was pale green striped in gold and black. 

"Hello, Eldra, " he greeted her. 

"Hello, Chief's Assistant: I'm sorry to bother you, but the Chiefwants to talk to you. Just a moment, please. "

The screen exploded into a kaleidoscopic flash of lights and colors, then cleared again. This time, a man looked out of it. He was wellinto middle age; close to his three hundredth year. His hair, auniform iron-gray, was beginning to thin in front, and he wasacquiring the beginnings of a double chin. His name was Tortha Karf, and he was Chief of Paratime Police, and Verkan Vall's superior. 

"Hello, Vall. Glad I was able to locate you. When are you and Dallaleaving?"

"As soon as we can get away from this luncheon, here. Oh, say an hour. We're taking a rocket to Zarabar, and transposing from there toPassenger Terminal Sixteen, and from there to the Dwarma Sector. "

"Well, Vall, I hate to bother you like this, " Tortha Karf said, "but Iwish you'd stop by Headquarters on your way to the rocketport. Something's come up--it may be a very nasty business--and I'd like totalk to you about it. "

"Well, Chief, let me remind you that this vacation, which I've had topostpone four times already, has been overdue for four years, " Vallsaid. 

"Yes, Vall, I know. You've been working very hard, and you and Dallaare entitled to a little time together. I just want you to look intosomething, before you leave. "

"It'll have to take some fast looking. Our rocket blasts off in twohours. "

"It may take a little longer; if it does, you and Dalla can transposeto Police Terminal and take a rocket for Zarabar Equivalent, andtranspose from there to Passenger Sixteen. It would save time if youbrought Dalla with you to Headquarters. "

"Dalla won't like this, " Vall understated. 

"No. I'm afraid not. " Tortha Karf looked around apprehensively, asthough estimating the damage an enraged Hadron Dalla could do to hisoffice furnishings. "Well, try to get here as soon as you can. "

 * * * * *

Thalvan Dras was holding forth, when Vall returned, on one of hisfavorite preoccupations. 

". .. Reason I'm taking such an especially active interest in thisyear's Arts Exhibitions; I've become disturbed at the extent to whichso many of our artists have been content to derive their motifs, eventheir techniques, from outtime art. " He was using his vocowriter, rather than his conversational, voice. "I yield to no one in myappreciation of outtime art--you all know how devotedly I collectobjects of art from all over paratime--but our own artists shouldendeavor to express their artistic values in our own artistic idioms. "

Vall bent over his wife's shoulder. 

"We have to leave, right away, " he whispered. 

"But our rocket doesn't blast off for two hours--"

Thalvan Dras had stopped talking and was looking at them in annoyance. 

"I have to go to Headquarters before we leave. It'll save time if youcome along. "

"Oh, no, Vall!" She looked at him in consternation. "Was that TorthaKarf, calling?" She replaced her plate on the table and got to herfeet. 

"I'm dreadfully sorry, Dras, " he addressed their host. "I just had acall from Tortha Karf. A few minor details that must be cleared up, before I leave Home Time Line. If you'll accept our thanks for awonderful luncheon--"

"Why, certainly, Vall. Brogoth, will you call--" He gave a slightchuckle. "I'm so used to having Brogoth Zaln at my elbow that I'dforgotten he wasn't here. Wait. I'll call one of the servants to havea car for you. "

"Don't bother; we'll take an aircab, " Vall told him. 

"But you simply can't take a public cab!" The black-bearded noblemanwas shocked at such an obscene idea. "I will have a car ready for youin a few minutes. "

"Sorry, Dras; we have to hurry. We'll get a cab on the roof. Good-by, everybody; sorry to have to break away like this. See you all when weget back. "

 * * * * *

Hadron Dalla watched dejectedly as the green crags and escarpments ofthe Paratime Building loomed above the city in front of them, andbegan slipping under the aircab. She felt like a prisoner recapturedat the moment when attempted escape was about to succeed. 

"I knew it, " she said. "I knew he'd find something. He's trying tobreak things up between us, the way he did twenty years ago. '"

Vall crushed out his cigarette and said nothing. That hadn't beentrue, and she knew it as well as he did. There had been many otherfactors involved in the disintegration of their previous marriage, most of them of her own contribution. But that had been twenty yearsago, she told herself. This time it would be different, if only--

"Really, Vall, he's never liked me, " she went on. "He's jealous of me, I think. You're to be his successor, when he retires, and he thinksI'm not a good influence--"

"Oh, rubbish, Dalla! The Chief has always liked you, " Vall replied. "If he didn't, do you think he'd always be inviting us to that farm ofhis, on Fifth Level Sicily? It's just that this job of ours has noend; something's always turning up, outtime. "

The music that the cab had been playing died away. "Paratime Building, just below, " it said, in a light feminine voice. "Which landing stage, please?" Vall leaned forward and punched at the buttons in front ofhim. Something in the cab's electronic brain gave a rapid series ofclicks as it shifted from the general Paratime Building beam to thebeam of the Paratime Police landing stage, then it said, "Thank you. "The building below seemed to rotate upward toward them as it settleddown. Then the antigrav-field snapped off, the cab door popped open, and the cab said: "Good-by, now. Ride with me again, sometime. "

They crossed the landing stage, entered the antigrav shaft, andfloated downward; at the end of a hallway, below, Vall opened the doorof Tortha Karf's office and ushered her through ahead of him. 

Tortha Karf, inside the semicircle of his desk, was speaking into arecording phone as they approached. He shut off the machine and waved, a cigarette in his hand. 

"Come on back and sit down, " he invited. "Be with you in a moment. "Then he switched on the phone again and went on talking--somethingabout prompter evaluation and transmission of reports and lessreliance on robot equipment. "Sign that up, my personal order, and seeit's transmitted to everybody down to and including Sector RegionalSubchief level, " he finished, then hung up the phone and turned tothem. 

"Sorry about this, " he said. "Sit down, if you please. Cigarettes?"

She shook her head and sat down in one of the chairs behind the desk;she started to relax and then caught herself and sat erect, her handson her lap. 

"This won't interfere with your vacation, Vall, " Tortha Karf wassaying. "I just need a little help before you transpose out. "

"We have to catch the rocket for Zarabar in an hour and a half, " Dallareminded him. 

"Don't worry about that; if you miss the commercial rocket, our policerockets can give it an hour's start and pass it before it gets toZarabar, " Tortha Karf said. Then he turned to Vall. "Here's what'shappened, " he said. "One of our field agents on detached duty as guardcaptain for Consolidated Outtime Foodstuffs on a fruit plantation inwestern North America, Third Level Esaron Sector, was looking over alot of slaves who had been sold to the plantation by a local slavedealer. He heard them talking among themselves--in Kharanda. "

Dalla caught the significance of that before Vall did. At first, shewas puzzled; then, in spite of herself, she was horrified and angry. Tortha Karf was explaining to Vall just where and on what paratemporalsector Kharanda was spoken. 

"No possibility that this agent, Skordran Kirv, could have beenmistaken. He worked for a while on Kholghoor Sector, himself; knew thelanguage by hypno-mech and by two years' use, " Tortha Karf was saying. "So he ordered himself back on duty, had the slaves isolated and theslave dealers arrested, and then transposed to Police Terminal toreport. The SecReg Subchief, old Vulthor Tharn, confirmed him incharge at this Esaron Sector plantation, and assigned him a couple ofdetectives and a psychist. "

"When was this?" Vall asked. 

"Yesterday. One-Five-Nine Day. About 1500 local time. "

"Twenty-three hundred Dhergabar time, " Vall commented. 

"Yes. And I just found out about it. Came in in the late morninggeneralized report-digest; very inconspicuous item, no special urgencysymbol or anything. Fortunately, one of the report editors spotted itand messaged Police Terminal for a copy of the original report. "

"It's been a long time since we had anything like that, " Vall said, studying the glowing tip of his cigarette, his face wearing thecuriously withdrawn expression of a conscious memory recall. "Fiftyyears ago; the time that gang kidnaped some girls from Second LevelTriplanetary Empire Sector and sold them into the harem of some FourthLevel Indo-Turanian sultan. "

"Yes. That was your first independent case, Vall. That was when Ibegan to think you'd really make a cop. One renegade First Levelcitizen and four or five ServSec Prole hoodlums, with a stolenfifty-foot conveyer. This looks like a rather more ambitiousoperation. " Dalla got one of her own cigarettes out and lit it. Valland Tortha Karf were talking cop talk about method of operation andpossible size of the gang involved, and why the slaves had beenshipped all the way from India to the west coast of North America. 

"Always ready sale for slaves on the Esaron Sector, " Vall was saying. "And so many small independent states, and different languages, thatouttimers wouldn't be particularly conspicuous. "

"And with this barbarian invasion going on on the Kholghoor Sector, slaves could be picked up cheaply, " Tortha Karf added. 

In spite of her determination to boycott the conversation, curiositybegan to get the better of her. She had spent a year and a half on theKholghoor Sector, investigating alleged psychic powers of the localpriests. There'd been nothing to it--the prophecies weren'tprecognition, they were shrewd inferences, and the miracles weren'tpsychokinesis, they were sleight-of-hand. She found herself asking:

"What barbarian invasion's this?"

"Oh, Central Asian nomadic people, the Croutha, " Tortha Karf told her. "They came down through Khyber Pass about three months ago, turnedeast, and hit the headwaters of the Ganges. Without punching a lot ofbuttons to find out exactly, I'd say they're halfway to the deltacountry by now. Leader seems to be a chieftain called Llamh Droogh theRed. A lot of paratime trading companies are yelling for permits tointroduce firearms in the Kholghoor Sector to protect their holdingsthere. "

She nodded. The Fourth Level Kholghoor Sector belonged to what wasknown as Indus-Ganges-Irriwady Basic Sector-Grouping--probability ofcivilization having developed late on the Indian subcontinent, withthe rest of the world, including Europe, in Stone Age savagery orearly Bronze Age barbarism. The Kharandas, the people among whom shehad once done field-research work, had developed a pre-mechanical, animal-power, handcraft, edge-weapon culture. She could imagine theroads jammed with fugitives from the barbarian invaders, the conveyerhidden among the trees, the lurking slavers--

Watch it, Dalla! Don't let the old scoundrel play on your feelings!

 * * * * *

"Well, what do you want me to do, Chief?" Vall was asking. 

"Well, I have to know just what this situation's likely to developinto, and I want to know why Vulthor Tharn's been sitting on this eversince Skordran Kirv reported it to him--"

"I can answer the second one now, " Vall replied. "Vulthor Tharn is dueto retire in a few years. He has a negatively good, undistinguishedrecord. He's trying to play it safe. "

Tortha Karf nodded. "That's what I thought. Look, Vall; suppose youand Dalla transpose from here to Police Terminal, and go to NovilanEquivalent, and give this a quick look-over and report to me, and thenrocket to Zarabar Equivalent and go on with your trip to the DwarmaSector. It may delay you eight or ten hours, but--"

"Closer twenty-four, " Vall said. "I'd have to transpose to thisplantation, on the Esaron Sector. How about it, Dalla? Would you wantto do that?"

She hesitated for a moment, angry with him. He didn't want to refuse, and he was trying to make her do it for him. 

"I know, it's a confounded imposition, Dalla, " Tortha Karf told her. "But it's important that I get a prompt and full estimate of thesituation. This may be something very serious. If it's an isolatedincident, it can be handled in a routine manner, but I'm afraid it'snot. It has all the marks of a large-scale operation, and if this is amatter of mass kidnapings from one sector and transpositions toanother, you can see what a threat this is to the Paratime Secret. "

"Moral considerations entirely aside, " Vall said. "We don't need todiscuss them; they're too obvious. "

She nodded. For over twelve millennia, the people of her race andVall's and Tortha Karf's had been existing as parasites on all theinnumerable other worlds of alternate probability on the lateraldimension of time. Smart parasites never injure their hosts, and trynever to reveal their existence. 

"We could do that, couldn't we, Vall?" she asked, angry at herself nowfor giving in. "And if you want to question these slaves, I speakKharanda, and I know how they think. And I'm a qualified and licensednarco-hypnotic technician. "

"Well, that's splendid, Dalla!" Tortha Karf enthused. "Wait a moment;I'll message Police Terminal to have a rocket ready for you. "

"I'll need a hypno-mech for Kharanda, myself, " Vall said. "Dalla, doyou know Acalan?" When she shook her head, he turned back to TorthaKarf. "Look; it's about a four-hour rocket hop to Novilan Equivalent. Say we have the hypno-mech machines installed in the rocket; Dalla andI can take our language lessons on the way, and be ready to go to workas soon as we land. "

"Good idea, " Tortha Karf approved. "I'll order that done, right away. Now--"

Oddly enough, she wasn't feeling so angry, now that she had committedherself and Vall. Come to think of it, she had never been on PoliceTerminal Time Line; very few people, outside the Paratime Police, everhad. And, she had always wanted to learn more about Vall's work, andparticipate in it with him. And if she'd made him refuse, it wouldhave been something ugly between them all the time they would be onthe Dwarma Sector. But this way--

 * * * * *

The big circular conveyer room was crowded, as it had been everyminute of every day for the past ten thousand years. At the greatcircular desk in the center, departing or returning police officerswere checking in or out with the flat-topped cylindrical robotclerks, or talking to human attendants. Some were in the regulationgreen uniform; others, like himself, were in civilian clothes; morewere in outtime costumes from all over paratime. Fringed robes andcloth-of-gold sashes and conical caps from the Second Level KhiftanSector; Fourth Level Proto-Aryan mail and helmets; the short tunicsand kilts of Fourth Level Alexandrian-Roman Sector; the Zarkanthaloincloth and felt cap and daggers; there were priestly vestmentsstiff with gold, and military uniforms; there were trousers andjackboots and bare legs; blasters, and swords, and pistols, and bowsand quivers, and spears. And the place was loud with a babel of voicesand the clatter of teleprinters. 

[Illustration:]

Dalla was looking about her in surprised delight; for her, thevacation had already begun. He was glad; for a while, he had beenafraid that she would be unhappy about it. He guided her through thecrowd to the desk, spoke for a while to one of the human attendants, and found out which was their conveyer. It was a fixed-destinationshuttler, operative only between Home Time Line and Police Terminal, from which most of the Paratime Police operations were routed. He putDall in through the sliding door, followed, and closed it behind him, locking it. Then, before he closed the starting switch, he drew apistollike weapon and checked it. 

In theory, the Ghaldron-Hesthor paratemporal transposition field wasuninfluenced by material objects outside it. In practice, however, such objects occasionally intruded, and sometimes they were alive andhostile. The last time he had been in this conveyer room, he had seena quartet of returning officers emerge from a conveyer dome dragginga dead lion by the tail. The sigma-ray needler, which he carried, wasthe only weapon which could be used, under the circumstances. It hadno effect whatever on any material structure and could be used insidean activated conveyer without deranging the conductor-mesh, as, say, abullet or the vibration of an ultrasonic paralyzer would do, and itwas instantly fatal to anything having a central nervous system. Itwas a good weapon to use outtime for that reason, also; even on themost civilized time-line, the most elaborate autopsy would reveal nospecific cause of death. 

"What's the Esaron Sector like?" Dalla asked, as the conveyer domearound them coruscated with shifting light and vanished. 

"Third Level; probability of abortive attempt to colonize this planetfrom Mars about a hundred thousand years ago, " he said. "A fewsurvivors--a shipload or so--were left to shift for themselves whilethe parent civilization on Mars died out. They lost all vestiges oftheir original Martian culture, even memory of their extraterrestrialorigin. About fifteen hundred to two thousand years ago, a reasonablyhigh electrochemical civilization developed and they began workingwith nuclear energy and developed reaction-drive spaceships. Butthey'd concentrated so on the inorganic sciences, and so far neglectedthe bio-sciences, that when they launched their first ship for Venusthey hadn't yet developed a germ theory of disease. "

"What happened when they ran into the green-vomit fever?" Dalla asked. 

"About what you could expect. The first--and only--ship to returnbrought it back to Terra. Of course, nobody knew what it was, andbefore the epidemic ended, it had almost depopulated this planet. Since the survivors knew nothing about germs, they blamed it on theanger of the gods--the old story of recourse to supernaturalism in theabsence of a known explanation--and a fanatically anti-scientific cultgot control. Of course, space travel was taboo; so was nuclear andeven electric power. For some reason, steam power and gunpowderweren't offensive to the gods. They went back to a low-ordersteam-power, black-powder, culture, and haven't gotten beyond that tothis day. The relatively civilized regions are on the east coast ofAsia and the west coast of North America; civilized race more or lessCaucasian. Political organization just barely above the triballevel--thousands of petty kingdoms and republics and principalitiesand feudal holdings and robbers' roosts. The principal industries arebrigandage, piracy, slave-raiding, cattle-rustling and intercommunalwarfare. They have a few ramshackle steam railways, and somesteamboats on the rivers. We sell them coal and manufactured goods, mostly in exchange for foodstuffs and tobacco. Consolidated OuttimeFoodstuffs has the sector franchise. That's one of the companiesThalvan Dras gets his money from. "

They had run down through the civilized Second and Third Levels andwere leaving the Fourth behind and entering the Fifth, existing in theprobability of a world without human population. Once in a while, around them, they caught brief flashes of buildings and rocketportsand spaceports and landing stages, as the conveyer took them throughnarrow paratime belts on which their own civilization had establishedoutposts--Fifth Level Commercial, Fifth Level Passenger, IndustrialSector, Service Sector. 

Finally the conveyer dome around them shimmered into visibility andmaterialized; when they emerged, there were policemen in greenuniforms who entered to search the dome with drawn needlers to makesure they had picked up nothing dangerous on the way. The room outsidewas similar to the one they had left on Home Time Line, even to theshifting, noisy crowd in incongruously-mixed costumes. 

 * * * * *

The rocketport was a ten minutes' trip by aircar from the conveyerhead; when they boarded the stubby-winged strato-rocket, Vall saw thattwo of the passenger-seats had square metal cabinets bolted in placebehind them and blue plastic helmets on swinging arms mounted abovethem. 

"Everything's set up, " the pilot told them. "Dr. Hadron, you sit onthe left; that cabinet's loaded with language tape for Acalan. Yoursis loaded with a tape of Kharanda; that's the Fourth Level Kholghoorlanguage you wanted, Chief's Assistant. Shall I help you get fixed inyour seats?"

"Yes, if you please. Here, Dalla, I'll fix that for you. "

Dalla was already asleep when the pilot was adjusting his helmet andgiving him his injection. He never felt the rocket tilt into firingposition, and while he slept, the Kharands language, with all itsvocabulary and grammar, became part of his subconscious knowledge, needing only the mental pronunciation of a trigger-symbol to bring itinto consciousness. The pilot was already unfastening and raising hishelmet when he opened his eyes. Dalla, beside him, was sipping a cupof spiced wine. 

On the landing stage of the Sector-Regional Headquarters at NovilanEquivalent, four or five people were waiting for them. Vall recognizedthe subchief, Vulthor Tharn, who introduced another man, in ridingboots and a white cloak, as Skordran Kirv. Vall clasped hands with himwarmly. 

"Good work, Agent Skordran. You got onto this promptly. "

"I tried to, sir. Do you want the dope now? We have half an hour'sflight to our spatial equivalent, and another half hour intransposition. "

"Give it to me on the way, " he said, and turned to Vulthor Tharn. "Our Esaron costumes ready?"

"Yes. Over there in the control tower. We have a temporary conveyerhead set up about two hundred miles south of here, which will take youstraight through to the plantation. "

"Suppose you change now, Dalla, " he said. "Subchief, I'd like a wordwith you privately. "

He and Vulthor Tharn excused themselves and walked over to the edge ofthe landing stage. The SecReg Subchief was outwardly composed, butVall sensed that he was worried and embarrassed. 

"Now, what's been done since you got Agent Skordran's report?" Vallasked. 

"Well, sir, it seems that this is more serious than we hadanticipated. Field Agent Skordran, who will give you the particulars, says that there is every indication that a large and well-organizedgang of paratemporal criminals, our own people, are at work. He saysthat he's found evidence of activities on Fourth Level Kholghoor thatdon't agree with any information we have about conditions on thatsector. "

"Beside transmitting Agent Skordran's report to Dhergabar through therobot report-system, what have you done about it?"

"I confirmed Agent Skordran in charge of the local investigation, andgave him two detectives and a psychist, sir. As soon as we couldfurnish hypno-mech indoctrination in Kharanda to other psychists, Isent them along. He now has four of them, and eight detectives. Bythat time, we had a conveyer head right at this Consolidated OuttimeFoodstuffs plantation. "

"Why didn't you just borrow psychists from SecReg for Kholghoor, Eastern India?" Vall asked. "Subchief Ranthar would have loaned you afew. "

"Oh, I couldn't call on another SecReg for men without higher-echelonauthorization. Especially not from another Sector Organization, evenanother Level Authority, " Vulthor Tharn said. "Beside, it would havetaken longer to bring them here than hypno-mech our own personnel. "

He was right about the second point. Vall agreed mentally; however, his real reason was procedural. 

"Did you alert Ranthar Jard to what was going on in his SecReg?" heasked. 

"Gracious, no!" Vulthor Tharn was scandalized. "I have no authority totell people of equal echelon in other Sector and Level organizationswhat to do. I put my report through regular channels; it wasn't myplace to go outside my own jurisdiction. "

And his report had crawled through channels for fourteen hours, Vallthought. 

"Well, on my authority, and in the name of Chief Tortha, you messageRanthar Jard at once; send him every scrap of information you have onthe subject, and forward additional information as it comes in toyou. I doubt he'll find anything on any time-line that's beingexploited by any legitimate paratimers. This gang probably workexclusively on unpenetrated time-lines; this business Skordran Kirvcame across was a bad blunder on some underling's part. " He saw Dallaemerge from the control tower in breeches and boots and a white cloak, buckling on a heavy revolver. "I'll go change, now; you get busycalling Ranthar Jard. I'll see you when I get back. "

 * * * * *

"Are you taking over, Chief's Assistant?" Skordran Kirv asked, as theaircar lifted from the landing stage. 

"Not at all. My wife and I are starting on our vacation, as soon as Ifind out what's been happening here, and report to Chief Tortha. Didyour native troopers catch those slavers?"

"Yes, they got them yesterday afternoon; we've had them ever since. Doyou want the whole thing just as it happened, Assistant Verkan, orjust a condensation?"

"Give me what you think it indicates, remembering that you're probablytrying to analyze a large situation from a very small sample. "

"It's big, all right, " Skordran Kirv said. "This gang can't numberless than a hundred men, maybe several hundred. They must have atleast two two-hundred-foot conveyers and several small ones, and baseson what sounds like some Fifth Level Time line, and at least one airfreighter of around five thousand tons. They are operating on a numberof Kholghoor and Esaron time lines. "

Verkan Vall nodded. "I didn't think it was any petty larceny, " hesaid. 

"Wait till you hear the rest of it. On the Kholghoor Sector, this gangis known as the Wizard Traders; we've been using that as a conveniencelabel. They pose as sorcerers--black robes and hood-masks covered withluminous symbols, voice-amplifiers, cold-light auras, energy-weapons, mechanical magic tricks, that sort of thing. They have all the Crouthascared witless. Their procedure is to establish camps in the forestnear recently conquered Kharanda cities; then they appear to theCroutha, impress them with their magical powers, and trademanufactured goods for Kharanda captives. They mainly trade firearms, apparently some kind of flintlocks, and powder. "

Then they were confining their operations to unpenetrated time lines;there had been no reports of firearms in the hands of the Crouthainvaders. 

"After they buy a batch of slaves, " Skordran Kirv continued, "theytranspose them to this presumably Fifth Level base, where they haveconcentration camps. The slaves we questioned had been airlifted toNorth America, where there's another concentration camp, and fromthere transposed to this Esaron Sector time line where I found them. They say that there were at least two to three thousand slaves inthis North American concentration camp and that they are beingtransposed out in small batches and replaced by others airlifted infrom India. This lot was sold to a Calera named Nebu-hin-Abenoz, thechieftain of a hill town, Careba, about fifty miles south-west of theplantation. There were two hundred and fifty in this batch; thisCoru-hin-Irigod only bought the batch he sold at the plantation. "

 * * * * *

The aircar lost speed and altitude; below, the countryside was dottedwith conveyer heads, each spatially coexistent with some outtimepolice post or operation. There were a great many of them; the westerncoast of North America was a center of civilization on manyparatemporal sectors, and while the conveyer heads of the commercialand passenger companies were scattered over hundreds of Fifth Leveltime lines, those of the Paratime Police were concentrated upon one. The anti-grav-car circled around a three-hundred-foot steel tower thatsupported a conveyer head spatially coexistent with one on a top floorof some outtime tall building, and let down in front of a lowprefabricated steel shed. A man in police uniform came out to meetthem. There was a fifty-foot conveyer dome inside, and a fifty-footred-lined circle that marked the transposition point of an outtimeconveyer. They all entered the dome, and the operator put on thetransposition field. 

"You haven't heard the worst of it yet. " Skordran Kirv was saying. "Onthis time line, we have reason to think that the native, Nebu-hin-Abenoz, who bought the slaves, actually saw the slavers'conveyer. Maybe even saw it activated. "

"If he did, we'll either have to capture him and give him amemory-obliteration, or kill him, " Vall said. "What do you know abouthim?"

"Well, this Careba, the town he bosses, is a little walled town up inthe hills. Everybody there is related to everybody else; this man wehave, Coru-hin-Irigod, is the son of a sister of Nebu-hin-Abenoz'swife. They're all bandits and slavers and cattle rustlers and whathave you. For the last ten years, Nebu-hin-Abenoz has been buyingslaves from some secret source. Before the Kholghoor Sector peoplebegan coming in, they were mostly white, with a few brown people whomight have been Polynesians. No Negroes--there's no black race on thissector, and I suppose the paratime slavers didn't want too manyquestions asked. Coru-hin-Irigod, under narco-hypnosis, said that theywere all outlanders, speaking strange languages. "

"Ten years! And this is the first hint we've had of it, " Vall said. "That's not a bright mark for any of us. I'll bet the slave populationon some of these Esaron time lines is an anthropologist's nightmare. "

"Why, if this has been going on for ten years, there must have beenmillions upon millions of people dragged from their own time linesinto slavery!" Dalla said in a shocked voice. 

"Ten years may not be all of it, " Vall said. "This Nebu-hin-Abenozlooks like the only tangible lead we have, at present. How does heoperate?"

"About once every ten days, he'll take ten or fifteen men and go aday's ride--that may be as much as fifty miles; these Caleras havegood horses and they're hard riders--into the hills. He'll take a bigbag of money, all gold. After dark, when he has made camp, a couple ofstrangers in Calera dress will come in. He'll go off with them, andafter about an hour, he'll come back with eight or ten of thesestrangers and a couple of hundred slaves, always chained in batches often. Nebu-hin-Abenoz pays for them, makes arrangements for the nextmeeting, and the next morning he and his party start marching theslaves to Careba. I might add that, until now, these slaves have beensold to the mines east of Careba; these are the first that have gotteninto the coastal country. "

"That's why this hasn't come to light before, then. The conveyer comesin every ten days, at about the same place?"

"Yes. I've been thinking of a way we might trap them, " Skordran Kirvsaid. "I'll need more men, and equipment. "

"Order them from Regional or General Reserve. " Vall told him. "Thisthing's going to have overtop priority till it's cleared up. "

He was mentally cursing Vulthor Tharn's procedure-bound timidity asthe conveyer flickered and solidified around them and the overhead redlight turned green. 

 * * * * *

They emerged into the interior of a long shed, adobe-walled andthatch-roofed, with small barred windows set high above the earthfloor. It was cool and shadowy, and the air was heavy with thefragrance of citrus fruits. There were bins along the walls, somepartly full of oranges, and piles of wicker baskets. Another conveyerdome stood beside the one in which they had arrived; two men in whitecloaks and riding boots sat on the edge of one of the bins, smokingand talking. 

Skordran Kirv introduced them--Gathon Dard and Krador Arv, specialdetectives--and asked if anything new had come up. Krador Arv shookhis head. 

"We still have about forty to go, " he said. "Nothing new in theirstories; still the same two time lines. "

[Illustration:]

"These people, " Skordran Kirv explained, "were all peons on the estateof a Kharanda noble just above the big bend of the Ganges. The Crouthahit their master's estate about a ten-days ago, elapsed time. Intelling about their capture, most of them say that their master's wifekilled herself with a dagger after the Croutha killed her husband, but about one out of ten say that she was kidnaped by the Croutha. Twodifferent time lines, of course. The ones who tell the suicide storysaw no firearms among the Croutha; the ones who tell the kidnap storysay that they all had some kind of muskets and pistols. We're makingsynthetic summaries of the two stories. "

"We're having trouble with the locals about all these strangers comingin, " Gathon Dard added. "They're getting curious. "

"We'll have to take a chance on that, " Vall said. "Are theinterrogations still going on? Then let's have a look-in at them. "

The big double doors at the end of the shed were barred on the inside. Krador Arv unlocked a small side door, letting Vall, Dalla and GathonDard out. In the yard outside, a gang of slaves were unloading a bigwagon of oranges and packing them into hampers; they were guarded by acouple of native riflemen who seemed mostly concerned with keepingthem away from the shed, and a man in a white cloak was watching theguards for the same purpose. He walked over and introduced himself toVall. 

"Golzan Doth, local alias Dosu Golan. I'm Consolidated OuttimeFoodstuffs' manager here. "

"Nasty business for you people, " Vall sympathized. "If it's anyconsolation, it's a bigger headache for us. "

"Have you any idea what's going to be done about these slaves?"Golzan Doth asked. "I have to remember that the Company has fortythousand Paratemporal Exchange Units invested in them. The top officewas very specific in requesting information about that. "

Vall shook his head. "That's over my echelon, " he said. "Have to bedecided by the Paratime Commission. I doubt if your company'll suffer. You bought them innocently, in conformity with local custom. Ever buyslaves from this Coru-hin-Irigod before?"

"I'm new, here. The man I'm replacing broke his neck when his horseput a foot in a gopher hole about two ten-days ago. "

Beside him, Vall could see Dalla nod as though making a mental note. When she got back to Home Time Line, she'd put a crew of mediums towork trying to contact the discarnate former plantation manager; atRhogom Institute, she had been working on the problem of return of adiscarnate personality from outtime. 

"A few times, " Skordran Kirv said. "Nothing suspicious; all localstuff. We questioned Coru-hin-Irigod pretty closely on that point, andhe says that this is the first time he ever brought a batch ofNebu-hin-Abenoz's outlanders this far west. "

 * * * * *

The interrogations were being conducted inside the plantation house, in the secret central rooms where the paratimers lived. Skordran Kirvused a door-activator to slide open a hidden door. 

"I suppose I don't have to warn either of you that any positivestatement made in the hearing of a narco-hypnotized subject--" hebegan. 

". .. Has the effect of hypnotic suggestion--" Vall picked up afterhim. 

". .. And should be avoided unless such suggestion is intended, " Dallafinished. 

Skordran Kirv laughed, opening another, inner door, and stood aside. In what had been the paratimers' recreation room, most of thefurniture had been shoved into the corners. Four small tables had beenset up, widely spaced and with screens between; across each of them, with an electric recorder between, an almost naked Kharanda slavefaced a Paratime Police psychist. At a long table at the far side ofthe room, four men and two girls were working over stacks of cards andtwo big charts. 

"Phrakor Vuln, " the man who was working on the charts introducedhimself. "Synthesist. " He introduced the others. 

Vall made a point of the fact that Dalla was his wife, in case any ofthe cops began to get ideas, and mentioned that she spoke Kharanda, had spent some time on the Fourth Level Kholghoor, and was a qualifiedpsychist. 

"What have you got, so far?" he asked. 

"Two different time lines, and two different gangs of WizardTraders, " Phrakor Vuln said. "We've established the latter fromphysical descriptions and because both batches were sold by theCroutha at equivalent periods of elapsed time. "

Vall picked up one of the kidnap-story cards and glanced at it. 

"I notice there's a fair verbal description of these firearms, andmention of electric whips, " he said. "I'm curious about where theycame from. "

"Well, this is how we reconstructed them, Chief's Assistant, " one ofthe girls said, handing him a couple of sheets of white drawing paper. 

The sketches had been done with soft pencil; they bore repeatederasures and corrections. That of the whip showed a cylindricalhandle, indicated as twelve inches in length and one in diameter, fitted with a thumb-switch. 

"That's definitely Second Level Khiftan, " Vall said, handing it back. "Made of braided copper or silver wire and powered with a littlenuclear-conversion battery in the grip. They heat up to about twohundred centigrade; produce really painful burns. "

"Why, that's beastly!" Dalla exclaimed. 

"Anything on the Khiftan Sector is. " Skordran Kirv looked at the fourslaves at the tables. "We don't have a really bad case here, now. Afew of these people were lash-burned horribly, though. "

Vall was looking at the other sketches. One was a musket, with a widebutt and a band-fastened stock; the lock-mechanism, vaguely flintlock, had been dotted in tentatively. The other was a long pistol, similarlydefinite in outline and vague in mechanical detail; it was merely aknob-butted miniature of the musket. 

"I've seen firearms like these; have a lot of them in my collection, "he said, handing back the sketches. "Low-order mechanical orhigh-order pre-mechanical cultures. Fact is, things like those couldhave been made on the Kholghoor Sector, if the Kharandas had learnedto combine sulfur, carbon and nitrates to make powder. "

The interrogator at one of the tables had evidently heard all hissubject could tell him. He rose, motioning the slave to stand. 

"Now, go with that man, " he said in Kharanda, motioning to one of thedetectives in native guard uniform. "You will trust him; he is yourfriend and will not harm you. When you have left this room, you willforget everything that has happened here, except that you were kindlytreated and that you were given wine to drink and your hurts wereanointed. You will tell the others that we are their friends and thatthey have nothing to fear from us. And you will not try to remove themark from the back of your left hand. "

As the detective led the slave out a door at the other side of theroom, the psychist came over to the long table, handing over a cardand lighting a cigarette. 

"Suicide story, " he said to one of the girls, who took the card. 

"Anything new?"

"Some minor details about the sale to the Caleras on this time line. Ithink we've about scraped bottom. "

"You can't say that, " Phrakor Vuln objected. "The very last one maygive us something nobody else had noticed. "

Another subject was sent out. The interrogator came over to the table. 

"One of the kidnap-story crowd, " he said. "This one was right besidethat Croutha who took the shot at the wild pig or whatever it was onthe way to the Wizard Traders' camp. Best description of the gunswe've gotten so far. No question that they're flintlocks. " He sawVerkan Vall. "Oh, hello, Assistant Verkan. What do you make of them?You're an authority on outtime weapons, I understand. "

"I'd have to see them. These people simply don't think mechanicallyenough to give a good description. A lot of peoples make flintlockfirearms. "

He started running over, in his mind, the paratemporal areas in whichgunpowder but not the percussion-cap was known. Expanding cultures, which had progressed as far as the former but not the latter. Staticcultures, in which an accidental discovery of gunpowder had never beenfollowed up by further research. Post-debacle cultures, in which a fewstray bits of ancient knowledge had survived. 

Another interrogator came over, and then the fourth. For a while theysat and talked and drank coffee, and then the next quartet of slaves, two men and two women, were brought in. One of the women had beenbadly blistered by the electric whips of the Wizard Traders; in spiteof reassurances, all were visibly apprehensive. 

"We will not harm you, " one of the psychists told them. "Here; here ismedicine for your hurts. At first, it will sting, as good medicineswill, but soon it will take away all pain. And here is wine for you todrink. "

A couple of detectives approached, making a great show of pouring wineand applying ointment; under cover of the medication, they jabbed eachslave with a hypodermic needle, and then guided them to seats at thefour tables. Vall and Dalla went over and stood behind one of thepsychists, who had a small flashlight in his hand. 

"Now, rest for a while, " the psychist was saying. "Rest and let thegood medicine do its work. You are tired and sleepy. Look at thismagic light, which brings comfort to the troubled. Look at the light. Look . .. At . .. The . .. Light. "

They moved to the next table. 

"Did you have hand in the fighting?"

"No, lord. We were peasant folk, not fighting people. We had noweapons, nor weapon-skill. Those who fought were all killed; we heldup empty hands, and were spared to be captives of the Croutha. "

"What happened to your master, the Lord Ghromdour, and to his lady?"

"One of the Croutha threw a hatchet and killed our master, and thenhis lady drew a dagger and killed herself. "

The psychist made a red mark on the card in front of him, and circledthe number on the back of the slave's hand with red indelible crayon. Vall and Dalla went to the third table. 

"They had the common weapons of the Croutha, lord, and they also hadthe weapons of the Wizard Traders. Of these, they carried the longweapons slung across their backs, and the short weapons thrust throughtheir belts. "

A blue mark on the card; a blue circle on the back of the slave'shand. 

They listened to both versions of what had happened at the sack of theLord Ghromdour's estate, and the march into the captured city ofJhirda, and the second march into the forest to the camp of the WizardTraders. 

"The servants of the Wizard Traders did not appear until after theCroutha had gone away; they wore different garb. They wore shortjackets, and trousers, and short boots, and they carried small weaponson their belts--"

"They had whips of great cruelty that burned like fire; we were alllashed with these whips, as you may see, lord--"

"The Croutha had bound us two and two, with neck-yokes; these theservants of the Wizard Traders took off from us, and they chained ustogether by tens, with the chains we still wore when we came to thisplace--"

"They killed my child, my little Zhouzha!" the woman with the horriblyblistered back was wailing. "They tore her out of my arms, and one ofthe servants of the Wizard Traders--may Khokhaat devour his soulforever!--dashed out her brains. And when I struggled to save her. Iwas thrown on the ground, and beaten with the fire-whips until Ifainted. Then I was dragged into the forest, along with the others whowere chained with me. " She buried her head in her arms, sobbingbitterly. 

Dalla stepped forward, taking the flashlight from the interrogatorwith one hand and lifting the woman's head with the other. She flashedthe light quickly in the woman's eyes. 

"You will grieve no more for your child, " she said. "Already, you areforgetting what happened at the Wizard Traders' camp, and rememberingonly that your child is safe from harm. Soon you will remember heronly as a dream of the child you hope to have, some day. " She flashedthe light again, then handed it back to the psychist. "Now, tell uswhat happened when you were taken into the forest; what did you seethere?"

The psychist nodded approvingly, made a note on the card, andlistened while the woman spoke. She had stopped sobbing, now, and hervoice was clear and cheerful. 

Vall went over to the long table. 

"Those slaves were still chained with the Wizard Traders' chains whenthey were delivered here. Where are the chains?" he asked SkordranKirv. 

"In the permanent conveyer room, " Skordran Kirv said. "You can look atthem there; we didn't want to bring them in here, for fear these poordevils would think we were going to chain them again. They're verylight, very strong; some kind of alloy steel. Files and power sawsonly polish them; it takes fifteen seconds to cut a link with anatomic torch. One long chain, and short lengths, fifteen inches long, staggered, every three feet, with a single hinge-shackle for theankle. The shackles were riveted with soft wrought-iron rivets, evidently made with some sort of a power riveting-machine. We cut themeasily with a cold chisel. "

"They ought to be sent to Dhergabar Equivalent, Police Terminal, forstudy of material and workmanship. Now, you mentioned some scheme youhad for capturing this conveyer that brings in the slaves forNebu-hin-Abenoz. What have you in mind?"

"We still have Coru-hin-Irigod and all his gang, under hypno. I'dthought of giving them hypnotic conditioning, and sending them back toCareba with orders to put out some kind of signal the next timeNebu-hin-Abenoz starts out on a buying trip. We could have a couple ofmen posted in the hills overlooking Careba, and they could send amessage-ball through to Police Terminal. Then, a party could be sentwith a mobile conveyer to ambush Nebu-hin-Abenoz on the way, and wipeout his party. Our people could take their horses and clothing and goon to take the conveyer by surprise. "

"I'd suggest one change. Instead of relying on visual signals by thehypno-conditioned Coru-hin-Irigod, send a couple of our men to Carebawith midget radios. "

Skordran Kirv nodded. "Sure. We can condition Coru-hin-Irigod toaccept them as friends and vouch for them at Careba. Our boys can betraders and slave buyers. Careba's a market town; traders are alwayswelcome. They can have firearms to sell--revolvers and repeatingrifles. Any Calera'll buy any firearm that's better than the one he'scarrying; they'll always buy revolvers and repeaters. We can get whatwe want from Commercial Four-Oh-Seven; we can get riding and packhorses here. "

Vall nodded. "And the post overlooking or in radio range of Careba onthis time line, and another on PolTerm. For the ambush ofNebu-hin-Abenoz's gang and the capture of the conveyer, use anything youwant to--sleep-gas, paralyzers, energy-weapons, antigrav-equipment, anything. As far as regulations about using only equipment appropriateto local culture-levels, forget them entirely. But take that conveyerintact. You can locate the base time line from the settings of theinstrument panel, and that's what we want most of all. "

Dalla and the police psychist, having finished with and dismissedtheir subject, came over to the long table. 

". .. That poor creature, " Dalla was saying. "What sort of fiends arethey?"

"If that made you sick, remember we've been listening to things likethat for the last eight hours. Some of the stories were even worsethan that one. "

"Well, I'd like to use a heat-gun on the whole lot of them, turneddown to where it'd just fry them medium-rare, " Dalla said. "And forwhoever's back of this, take him to Second Level Khiftan and sell himto the priests of Fasif. "

"Too bad you're not coming back from your vacation, instead ofstarting out. Chief's Assistant Verkan, " Skordran Kirv said. "This istoo big for me to handle alone, and I'd sooner work under you thananybody else Chief Tortha sends in. "

"Vall!" Dalla cried in indignation. "You're not going to just reporton this and then walk away from it, are you?"

"But, darling, " Vall replied, in what he hoped was a convincing showof surprise. "You don't want our vacation postponed again, do you? IfI get mixed up in this, there's no telling when I can get away, and bythe time I'm free, something may come up at Rhogom Institute that youwon't want to drop--"

"Vall, you know perfectly well that I wouldn't be happy for an instanton the Dwarma Sector, thinking about this--"

"All right, then; let's forget about the vacation. You want to stay onfor a while and help me with this? It'll be a lot of hard work, butwe'll be together. "

"Yes, of course. I want to do something to smash those devils. Vall, if you'd heard some of the things they did to those poor people--"

"Well, I'll have to go back to PolTerm, as soon as I'm reasonably wellfilled in on this, and report to Tortha Karf and tell him I've takencharge. You can stay here and help with these interrogations; I'll beback in about ten hours. Then, we can go to Kholghoor East IndiaSecReg HQ to talk to Ranthar Jard. We may be able to get somethingthat'll help us on that end--"

"You may be able to have your vacation before too long, Dr. Hadron, "Skordran Kirv told her. "Once we capture one of their conveyers, theinstrument panel'll tell us what time line they're working from, andthen we'll have them. "

"There's an Indo-Turanian Sector parable about a snake charmer whothought he was picking up his snake and found that he had hold of anelephant's tail, " Vall said. "That might be a good thing to bear inmind, till we find out just what we have picked up. "

[Illustration:]

 * * * * *

Coming down a hallway on the hundred and seventh floor of theManagement wing of the Paratime Building, Yandar Yadd paused toadmire, in the green mirror of the glassoid wall, the jaunty angle ofhis silver-feathered cap, the fit of his short jacket, and the way hisweapon hung at his side. This last was not instantly recognizable as aweapon; it looked more like a portable radio, which indeed it was. Itwas, none the less, a potent weapon. One flick of his finger couldconnect that radio with one at Tri-Planet News Service, and within thehour anything he said into it would be heard by all Terra, Mars andVenus. In consequence, there existed around the Paratime Building amarked and understandable reluctance to antagonize Yandar Yadd. 

He glanced at his watch. It was twenty minutes short of 1000, when hehad an appointment with Baltan Vrath, the comptroller general. Glancing about, he saw that he was directly in front of the doorway ofthe Outtime Claims Bureau, and he strolled in, walking through thewaiting room and into the claims-presentation office. At once, hestiffened like a bird dog at point. 

Sphabron Larv, one of his young legmen, was in altercation across thecounter-desk with Varkar Klav, the Deputy Claims Agent on duty at thetime. Varkar was trying to be icily dignified; Sphabron Larv's blackhair was in disarray and his face was suffused with anger. He waspounding with his fist on the plastic counter-top. 

"You have to!" he was yelling in the older man's face. "That's apublic document, and I have a right to see it. You want me to go intoTribunes' Court and get an order? If I do, there'll be a Question inCouncil about why I had to, before the day's out!"

"What's the matter, Larv?" Yandar Yadd asked lazily. "He trying tohold something out on you?"

Sphabron Larv turned; his eyes lit happily when he saw his boss, andthen his anger returned. 

"I want to see a copy of an indemnity claim that was filed thismorning, " he said. "Varkar, here, won't show it to me. What does hethink this is, a Fourth Level dictatorship?"

"What kind of a claim, now?" Yandar Yadd addressed Larv, ignoringVarkar Klav. 

"Consolidated Outtime Foodstuffs--one of the Thalvan Interestscompanies--just claimed forty thousand P. E. U. For a hundred slavesbought by one of their plantation managers on Third Level Esaron froma local slave dealer. The Paratime Police impounded the slaves fornarco-hypnotic interrogation, and then transposed the lot of them toPolice Terminal. "

Yandar Yadd still held his affectation of sleepy indolence. 

"Now why would the Paracops do that, I wonder? Slavery's anestablished local practice on Esaron Sector; our people have to buyslaves if they want to run a plantation. "

"I know that. " Sphabron Larv replied. "That's what I want to find out. There must be something wrong, either with the slaves, or thetreatment our people were giving them, or the Paratime Police, and Iwant to find out which. "

"To tell the truth, Larv, so do I. " Yandar Yadd said. He turned to theman behind the counter. "Varkar, do we see that claim, or do I make astory out of your refusal to show it?" he asked. 

"The Paratime Police asked me to keep this confidential, " Varkar Klavsaid. "Publicity would seriously hamper an important policeinvestigation. "

Yandar Yadd made an impolite noise. "How do I know that all it woulddo would be to reveal police incompetence?" he retorted. "Look, Varkar; you and the Paratime Police and the Paratime Commission andthe Home Time Line Management are all hired employees of the Home TimeLine public. The public has a right to know what its employees aredoing, and it's my business to see that they're informed. Now, for thelast time--will you show us a copy of that claim?"

"Well, let me explain, off the record--" the official begged. 

"Huh-uh! Huh-uh! I had that off-the-record gag worked on me when I wasabout Larv's age, fifty years ago. Anything I get, I put on the air ornot at my own discretion. "

"All right, " Varkar Klav surrendered, pointing to a reading screen andtwiddling a knob. "But when you read it, I hope you have enoughdiscretion to keep quiet about it. "

The screen lit, and Yandar Yadd automatically pressed a button for aphoto-copy. The two newsmen stared for a moment, and then even YandarYadd's shell of drowsy negligence cracked and fell from him. His handbrushed the switch as he snatched the hand-phone from his belt. 

"Marva!" he barked, before the girl at the news office could more thanacknowledge. "Get this recorded for immediate telecast!. .. Ready?Beginning: The existence of a huge paratemporal slave trade came tolight on the afternoon of One-Five-Nine Day, on a time line of theThird Level Esaron Sector, when Field Agent Skordran Kirv, ParatimePolice, discovered, at an orange plantation of Consolidated OuttimeFoodstuffs--"

 * * * * *

Salgath Trod sat alone in his private office, his half-finished lunchgrowing cold on the desk in front of him as he watched the televiewscreen across the room, tuned to a pickup behind the Speaker's chairin the Executive Council Chamber ten stories below. The two thousandseats had been almost all empty at 1000, when Council had convened. Fifteen minutes later, the news had broken; now, at 1430, a good threequarters of the seats were occupied. He could see, in the aisles, thegold-plated robot pages gliding back and forth, receiving anddelivering messages. One had just slid up to the seat of CouncilmanHasthor Flan, and Hasthor was speaking urgently into the recordermouthpiece. Another message for him, he supposed; he'd gotten at leasta score such calls since the crisis had developed. 

People were going to start wondering, he thought. This situation shouldhave been perfect for his purposes; as leader of the Opposition he couldeasily make himself the next General Manager, if he exploited thisscandal properly. He listened for a while to the Centrist-Managementmember who was speaking; he could rip that fellow's arguments to shredsin a hundred words--but he didn't dare. The Management was takingexactly the line Salgath Trod wanted the whole Council to take: treatthis affair as an isolated and extraordinary occurrence, find a coupleof convenient scapegoats, cobble up some explanation acceptable to thepublic, and forget it. He wondered what had happened to the imbecile whohad transposed those Kholghoor Sector slaves onto an exploited timeline. Ought to be shanghaied to the Khiftan Sector and sold to thepriests of Fasif!

A buzzer sounded, and for an instant he thought it would be themessage he had seen Hasthor Fan recording. Then he realized that itwas the buzzer for the private door, which could only be operated bysomeone with a special identity sign. He pressed a button and unlockedthe door. 

The young man in the loose wrap-around tunic who entered was astranger. At least, his face and his voice were strange, but voicescould be mechanically altered, and a skilled cosmetician could renderany face unrecognizable. He looked like a student, or a minorcommercial executive, or an engineer, or something like that. Ofcourse, his tunic bulged slightly under the left armpit, but even themost respectable tunics showed occasional weapon-bulges. 

"Good afternoon, councilman, " the newcomer said, sitting down acrossthe desk from Salgath Trod. "I was just talking to . .. Somebody weboth know. "

Salgath Trod offered cigarettes, lighted his visitor's and then hisown. 

"What does Our Mutual Friend think about all this?" he asked, gesturing toward the screen. 

"Our Mutual Friend isn't at all happy about it. "

"You think, perhaps, that I'm bursting into wild huzzas?" Salgath Trodasked. "If I were to act as everybody expects me to, I'd be down thereon the floor, now, clawing into the Management tooth and nail. All myadherents are wondering why I'm not. So are all my opponents, andbefore long one of them is going to guess the reason. "

"Well, why not go down?" the stranger asked. "Our Mutual Friend thinksit would be an excellent idea. The leak couldn't be stopped, and it'sgone so far already that the Management will never be able to play itdown. So the next best thing is to try to exploit it. "

Salgath Trod smiled mirthlessly. "So I am to get in front of it, andlead it in the right direction? Fine . .. As long as I don't stumbleover something. If I do, it'll go over me like a Fifth Levelbison-herd. "

"Don't worry about that, " the stranger laughed reassuringly. "Thereare others on the floor who are also friends of Our Mutual Friend. Here: what you'd better do is attack the Paratime Police, especiallyTortha Karf and Verkan Vall. Accuse them of negligence andincompetence, and, by implication, of collusion, and demand a specialcommittee to investigate. And try to get a motion for a confidencevote passed. A motion to censure the Management, say--"

Salgath Trod nodded. "It would delay things, at least. And if OurMutual Friend can keep properly covered, I might be able to overturnthe Management. " He looked at the screen again. "That old fool of aNanthav is just getting started; it'll be an hour before I could getrecognized. Plenty of time to get a speech together. Something shortand vicious--"

"You'll have to be careful. It won't do, with your political record, to try to play down these stories of a gigantic criminal conspiracy. That's too close to the Management line. And at the same time, youwant to avoid saying anything that would get Verkan Vall and TorthaKarf started off on any new lines of investigation. "

Salgath Trod nodded. "Just depend on me; I'll handle it. "

After the stranger had gone, he shut off the sound reception, relyingon visual dumb-show to keep him informed of what was going on on theCouncil floor. He didn't like the situation. It was too easy to saythe wrong thing. If only he knew more about the shadowy figures whosemessengers used his private door--

 * * * * *

Coru-hin-Irigod held his aching head in both hands, as though he wereafraid it would fall apart, and blinked in the sunlight from thewindow. Lord Safar, how much of that sweet brandy had he drunk, lastnight? He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, trying to think. Then, suddenly apprehensive, he thrust his hand under his pillow. Theheavy four-barreled pistols were there, all right, but--_The money!_

He rummaged frantically among the bedding, and among his clothes, piled on the floor, but the leather bag was nowhere to be found. Twothousand gold _obus_, the price of a hundred slaves. He snatched upone of the pistols, his headache forgotten. Then he laughed and tossedthe pistol down again. Of course! He'd given the bag to the plantationmanager, what was his outlandish name, Dosu Golan, to keep for himbefore the drinking bout had begun. It was safely waiting for him inthe plantation strong box. Well, nothing like a good scare to make aman forget a brandy head, anyhow. And there was something else, something very nice--

Oh, yes, there it was, beside the bed. He picked up the beautifulgleaming repeater, pulled down the lever far enough to draw thecartridge halfway out of the chamber, and closed it again, loweringthe hammer. Those two Jeseru traders from the North, what were theirnames? Ganadara and Atarazola. That was a stroke of luck, meeting themhere. They'd given him this lovely rifle, and they were going toaccompany him and his men back to Careba; they had a hundred suchrifles, and two hundred six-shot revolvers, and they wanted to tradefor slaves. The Lord Safar bless them both, wouldn't they be welcomeat Careba!

He looked at the sunlight falling through the window on the stillrecumbent form of his companion, Faru-hin-Obaran. Outside, he couldhear the sounds of the plantation coming to life--an ax thudding onwood, the clatter of pans from the kitchens. Crossing toFaru-hin-Obaran's bed, he grasped the sleeper by the ankle, tugging. 

"Waken, Faru!" he shouted. "Get up and clear the fumes from your head!We start back to Careba today!"

Faru swore groggily and pushed himself into a sitting position, fumbling on the floor for his trousers. 

"What day's this?" he asked. 

"The day after we went to bed, ninny!" Then Coru-hin-Irigod wrinkledhis brow. He could remember, clearly enough, the sale of the slaves, but after that--Oh, well, he'd been drinking; it would all come backto him, after a while. 

 * * * * *

Verkan Vall rubbed his hand over his face wearily, started to lightanother cigarette, and threw it across the room in disgust. What heneeded was a drink--a long drink of cool, tart white wine, laced withbrandy--and then he needed to sleep. 

"We're absolutely nowhere!" Ranthar Jard said. "Of course they'reoperating on time lines we've never penetrated. The fact that they'resupplying the Croutha with guns proves that; there isn't a firearm onany of the time lines our people are legitimately exploiting. Andthere are only about three billion time lines on this belt of theCroutha invasion--"

"If we could think of a way to reduce it to some specific area ofparatime--" one of Ranthar Jard's deputies began. 

"That's precisely what we've been trying to do, Klav, " Vall said. "Wehaven't done it. "

Dalla, who had withdrawn from the discussion and was on a couch at theside of the room, surrounded by reports and abstracts and summaries, looked up. 

"I took hours and hours of hypno-mech on Kholghoor Sector religions, before I went out on that wild-goose chase for psychokinesis andprecognition data, " she said. "About six or eight hundred years ago, there were religious wars and heresies and religious schisms all overthe Kharanda country. No matter how uniform the Kholghoor Sector maybe otherwise, there are dozens and dozens of small belts andsub-sectors of different religions or sects or god-cults. "

"That's right, " Ranthar Jard agreed, brightening. "We havehagiologists who know all that stuff; we'll have a couple of theminterrogate those slaves. I don't know how much they can get out ofthem--lot of peasants, won't be up on the theological niceties--but asynthesis of what we get from the lot of them--"

"That's an idea, " Vall agreed. "About the first idea we've had, here--Oh, how about politics, too? Check on who's the king, what thestories about the royal family are, that sort of thing. "

Ranthar Jard looked at the map on the wall. "The Croutha have onlygotten halfway to Nharkan, here. Say we transpose detectives in atnight on some of these time lines we think are promising, and checkup at the tax-collection offices on a big landowner north of Jhirdanamed Ghromdour? That might get us something. "

"Well, I don't want you to think we're trying to get out of work, Chief's Assistant, " one of the deputies said, "but is there any realnecessity for our trying to locate the Wizard Trader time lines? Ifyou can get them from the Esaron Sector, it'll be the same, won't it?"

"Marv, in this business you never depend on just one lead, " RantharJard told him. "And beside, when Skordran Kirv's gang hits the base ofoperations in North America, there's no guarantee that they may nothave time to send off a radio warning to the crowd at the base here inIndia. We have to hit both places at once. "

"Well, that, too, " Vall said. "But the main thing is to get theseWizard Trader camps on the Kholghoor Sector cleaned out. How are youfixed for men and equipment, for a big raid, Jard?"

Ranthar Jard shrugged. "I can get about five hundred men withconveyers, including a couple of two-hundred-footers to carryairboats, " he said. 

"Not enough. Skordran Kirv has one complete armored brigade, oneairborne infantry brigade, and an air cavalry regiment, withGhaldron-Hesthor equipment for a simultaneous transposition, " Vallsaid. 

"Where in blazes did he get them all?" Ranthar Jard demanded. 

"They're guard troops, from Service Sector and Industrial Sector. We'll get you the same sort of a force. I only hope we don't haveanother Prole insurrection while they're away--"

"Well, don't think I'm trying to argue policy with you, " Ranthar Jardsaid, "but that could raise a dreadful stink on Home Time Line. Especially on top of this news-break about the slave trade. "

"We'll have to take a chance on that, " Vall said. "If you're worriedabout what the book says, forget it. We're throwing the book away, onthis operation. Do you realize that this thing is a threat to thewhole Paratime Civilization?"

"Of course I do, " Ranthar Jard said. "I know the doctrine of ParatimeSecurity as well as you or anybody else. The question is, does thepublic realize it?"

A buzzer sounded. Ranthar Jard pressed a switch on the intercom-box infront of him and said: "Ranthar here. Well?"

"Visiphone call, top urgency, just came in for Chief's AssistantVerkan, from Novilan Equivalent. Where can I put it through, sir?"

"Here; booth seven. " Ranthar Jard pointed across the room, nodding toVall. "In just a moment. "

 * * * * *

Gathon Dard and Antrath Alv--temporary local aliases, Ganadara andAtarazola--sat relaxed in their saddles, swaying to the motion oftheir horses. They wore the rust-brown hooded cloaks of the northernJeseru people, in sober contrast to the red and yellow and bluestriped robes and sun-bonnets of the Caleras in whose company theyrode. They carried short repeating carbines in saddle scabbards, andheavy revolvers and long knives on their belts, and each led sixheavily-laden pack-horses. 

Coru-hin-Irigod, riding beside Ganadara, pointed up the trail ahead. 

"From up there, " he said, speaking in Acalan, the lingua franca of theNorth American West Coast on that sector, "we can see across thevalley to Careba. It will be an hour, as we ride, with thepack-horses. Then we will rest, and drink wine, and feast. "

Ganadara nodded. "It was the guidance of our gods--and yours, Coru-hin-Irigod--that we met. Such slaves as you sold at theoutlanders' plantation would bring a fine price in the North. The menare strong, and have the look of good field-workers; the women arecomely and well-formed. Though I fear that my wife would little relishit did I bring home such handmaidens. "

Coru-hin-Irigod laughed. "For your wife, I will give you one of ourriding whips. " He leaned to the side, slashing at a cactus with hisquirt. "We in Careba have no trouble with our wives, about handmaidensor anything else. "

"By Safar, if you doubt your welcome at Careba, wait till you showyour wares, " another Calera said. "Rifles and revolvers like thosecome to our country seldom, and then old and battered, sold or stolenmany times before we see them. Rifles that fire seven times withouttaking butt from shoulder!" He invoked the name of the Great LordSafar again. 

The trail widened and leveled; they all came up abreast, with thepack-horses strung out behind, and sat looking across the valley tothe adobe walls of the town that perched on the opposite ridge. Aftera while, riders began dismounting and checking and tighteningsaddle-girths; a couple of Caleras helped Ganadara and Atarazolainspect their pack-horses. When they remounted, Atarazola bowed hishead, lifting his left sleeve to cover his mouth, and muttered into itat some length. The Caleras looked at him curiously, andCoru-hin-Irigod inquired of Ganadara what he did. 

"He prays, " Ganadara said. "He thanks our gods that we have lived tosee your town, and asks that we be spared to bring many more trains ofrifles and ammunition up this trail. "

The slaver nodded understandingly. The Caleras were a pious people, too, who believed in keeping on friendly terms with the gods. 

"May Safar's hand work with the hands of your gods for it, " he said, making what, to a non-Calera, would have been an extremely ribaldsign. 

"The gods watch over us, " Atarazola said, lifting his head. "They arenear us even now; they have spoken words of comfort in my ear. "'

Ganadara nodded. The gods to whom his partner prayed were a couple ofparatime policemen, crouching over a radio a mile or so down theridge. 

"My brother, " he told Coru-hin-Irigod, "is much favored by our gods. Many people come to him to pray for them. "

"Yes. So you told me, now that I think on it. " That detail had beenincluded in the pseudo-memories he had been given under hypnosis. "Iserve Safar, as do all Caleras, but I have heard that the Jeserus'gods are good gods, dealing honestly with their servants. "

 * * * * *

An hour later, under the walls of the town, Coru-hin-Irigod drew oneof his pistols and fired all four barrels in rapid succession into theair, shouting, "Open! Open for Coru-hin-Irigod, and for the Jeserutraders, Ganadara and Atarazola, who are with him!"

A head, black-bearded and sun-bonneted, appeared between the brickmerlons of the wall above the gate, shouted down a welcome, and thenturned away to bawl orders. The gate slid aside, and, after thecaravan had passed through, naked slaves pushed the massive thing shutagain. Although they were familiar with the interior of the town, fromphotographs taken with boomerang-balls--automatic-return transpositionspheres like message-balls--they looked around curiously. The centralsquare was thronged--Caleras in striped robes, people from the southand east in baggy trousers and embroidered shirts, mountaineers indeerskins. A slave market was in progress, and some hundred-odd itemsof human merchandise were assembled in little groups, guarded by theirowners and inspected by prospective buyers. They seemed to be allnatives of that geographic and paratemporal area. 

"Don't even look at those, " Coru-hin-Irigod advised. "They are butculls; the market is almost over. We'll go to the house ofNebu-hin-Abenoz, where all the considerable men gather, and you willfind those who will be able to trade slaves worthy of the goods youhave with you. Meanwhile, let my people take your horses and packs tomy house; you shall be my guests while you stay in Careba. "

It was perfectly safe to trust Coru-hin-Irigod. He was a murderer anda brigand and a slaver, but he would never incur the scorn of men andthe curse of the gods by dealing foully with a guest. The horses andpacks were led away by his retainers; Ganadara and Atarazola pushedtheir horses after his and Faru-hin-Obaran's through the crowd. 

The house of Nebu-hin-Abenoz, like every other building in Careba, wasflat-roofed, adobe-walled and window-less except for narrowrifle-slits. The wide double-gate stood open, and five or six heavilyarmed Caleras lounged just inside. They greeted Coru and Faru by name, and the strangers by their assumed nationality. The four rode through, into what appeared to be the stables, turning their horses over toslaves, who took them away. There were between fifty and sixty otherhorses in the place. 

[Illustration:]

Divesting themselves of their weapons in an anteroom at the head of aflight of steps, they passed under an arch and into a wide, shadypatio, where thirty or forty men stood about or squatted on piles ofcushions, smoking cheroots, drinking from silver cups, talking in acontinuous babel. Most of them were in Calera dress, though there weremen of other communities and nations, in other garb. As they movedacross the patio, Gathon Dard caught snatches of conversations aboutdeals in slaves, and horse trades, about bandit raids and blood feuds, about women and horses and weapons. 

An old man with a white beard and an unusually clean robe came over tointercept them. 

"Ha, lord of my daughter, you're back at last. We had begun to fearfor you, " he said. 

"Nothing to fear, father of my wife, " Coru-hin-Irigod replied. "Wesold the slaves for a good price, and tarried the night feasting ingood company. Such good company that we brought some of it withus--Atarazola and Ganadara, men of the Jeseru; Cavu-hin-Avoran, whosedaughter mothered my sons. " He took his father-in-law by the sleeveand pulled him aside, motioning Gathon Dard and Antrath Alv to follow. 

"They brought weapons; they want outland slaves, of the sort I took tosell in the Big Valley country, " he whispered. "The weapons arerepeating rifles from across the ocean, and six-shot revolvers. Theyalso have much ammunition. "

"Oh, Safar bless you!" the white-beard cried, his eyes brightening. "Name your own price; satisfy yourselves that we have dealt fairlywith you; go, and return often again! Come, lord of my daughter; letus make them known to Nebu-hin-Abenoz. But not a word about the kindof weapons you have, strangers, until we can speak privately. Say onlythat you have rifles to trade. "

Gathon Dard nodded. Evidently there was some sort of power-strugglegoing on in Careba; Coru-hin-Irigod and his wife's father were of theparty of Nebu-hin-Abenoz, and wanted the repeaters and six-shootersfor themselves. 

 * * * * *

Nebu-hin-Abenoz, swarthy, hook-nosed, with a square-cut graying beard, lounged in a low chair across the patio; near him four or five otherCaleras sat or squatted or reclined, all smoking the rank blacktobacco of the country and drinking wine or brandy. Their conversationceased as Cavu-hin-Avoran and the others approached. The chief ofCareba listened to the introduction, then heaved himself to his feetand clapped the newcomers on the shoulders. 

"Good, good!" he said. "We know you Jeseru people; you're honesttraders. You come this far into our mountains too seldom. We can tradewith you. We need weapons. As for the sort of slaves you want, we havenone too many now, but in eight days we will have plenty. If you staywith us that long--"

"Careba is a pleasant place to be, " Ganadara said. "We can wait. "

"What sort of weapons have you?" the chief asked. 

"Pistols and rifles, lord of my father's sister, " Coru-hin-Irigodanswered for them. "The packs have been taken to my house, where ourfriends will stay. We can bring a few to show you, the hour afterevening prayers. "

Nebu-hin-Abenoz shot a keen glance at his brother-in-law's son andnodded. "Or, better, I will come to your house then; thus I can seethe whole load. How will that be?"

"Better; I will be there, too, " Cavu-hin-Avoran said, then turned toGathon Dard and Antrath Alv. "You have been long on the road; come, let us drink cool wine, and then we will eat, " he said. "Until thisevening, Nebu-hin-Abenoz. "

He led his son-in-law and the traders to one side, where several kegsstood on trestles with cups and flagons beside them. They filled aflagon, took a cup apiece, and went over to a pile of cushions at oneside. 

As they did, three men came pushing through the crowd towardNebu-hin-Abenoz's seat. They wore a costume unfamiliar to GathonDard--little round caps with red and green streamers behind, and long, wide-sleeved white gowns--and one of them had gold rings in his ears. 

"Nebu-hin-Abenoz?" one of them said, bowing. "We are three men of theUsasu cities. We have gold _obus_ to spend; we seek a beautiful girl, to be first concubine to our king's son, who is now come to the estateof manhood. "

Nebu-hin-Abenoz picked up the silver-mounted pipe he had laid aside, and re-lighted it, frowning. 

"Men of the Usasu, you have a heavy responsibility, " he said. "Youhave the responsibility for the future of your kingdom, for a boy'scharacter is more shaped by his first concubine than by his teachers. How old is the boy?"

"Sixteen, Nebu-hin-Abenoz; the age of manhood among us. "

"Then you want a girl older, but not much older. She should be versedin the arts of love, but innocent of heart. She should be wise, butteachable; gentle and loving, but with a will of her own--"

The three men in white gowns were fidgeting. Then, suddenly, like threemarionettes on a single string, they put their right hands to theirmouths and then plunged them into the left sleeves of their gowns, whipping out knives and then sprang as one upon Nebu-hin-Abenoz, slashing and stabbing. 

Gathon Dard was on his feet at once; he hurled the wine flagon at thethree murderers and leaped across the room. Antrath Alv went boundingafter him, and by this time three or four of the group aroundNebu-hin-Abenoz's chair had recovered their wits and jumped to theirfeet. One of the three assailants turned and slashed with his knife, almost disemboweling a Calera who had tried to grapple with him. Before he could free the blade, another Calera brought a brandy bottledown on his head. Gathon Dard sprang upon the back of a secondassassin, hooking his left elbow under the fellow's chin and grabbingthe wrist of his knife-hand with his right; the man struggled for aninstant, then went limp and fell forward. The third of the trio ofmurderers was still slashing at the fallen chieftain when Antrath Alvchopped him along the side of the neck with the edge of his hand; hesimply dropped and lay still. 

Nebu-hin-Abenoz was dead. He had been slashed and cut and stabbed intwenty places; his throat had been cut at least three times, and hehad almost been decapitated. The wounded Calera wasn't dead yet;however, even if he had been at the moment on the operating table of aFirst Level Home Time Line hospital, it was doubtful if he could havebeen saved, and under the circumstances, his life-expectancy could bemeasured in seconds. Some cushions were placed under his head, andwomen called to attend him, but he died before they arrived. 

The three assassins were also dead. Except for a few cuts on the scalpof the one who had been felled with the bottle, there was not a markon any of them. Cavu-hin-Avoran kicked one of them in the face andcursed. 

"We killed the skunks too quickly!" he cried. "We should have overcomethem alive, and then taken our time about dealing with them as theydeserved. " He went on to specify the nature of their deserts. "Suchinfamy!"

"Well, I'll swear I didn't think a little tap like I gave that onewould kill him, " the bottle-wielder excused himself. "Of course, I wasthinking only of Nebu-hin-Abenoz, Safar receive him--"

Antrath Alv bent over the one he had hand-chopped. 

"I didn't kill this one, " he said. "The way I hit him, if I had, hisneck would be broken, and it's not. See?" He twisted at the dead man'sneck. "I think they took poison before they drew their knives. "

"I saw all of them put their hands to their mouths!" a Caleraexclaimed. "And look; see how their jaws are clenched. " He picked upone of the knives and used it to pry the dead man's jaws apart, sniffing at his lips and looking into his mouth. "Look, his teeth andhis tongue are discolored; there is a strange smell, too. "

Antrath Alv sniffed, then turned to his partner. "Halatane, " hewhispered. Gathon Dard nodded. That was a First Level poison;paratimers often carried halatane capsules on the more barbarictime-lines, as a last insurance against torture. 

"But, Holy Name of Safar, what manner of men were these?"Coru-hin-Irigod demanded. "There are those I would risk my life tokill, but I would not throw it away thus. "

"They came knowing that we would kill them, and took the poison thatthey might die quickly and without pain, " a Calera said. 

"Or that your tortures would not wring from them the names and nationof those who sent them, " an elderly man in the dress of a rancher fromthe southeast added. "If I were you, I would try to find out who theseenemies are, and the sooner the better. "

Gathon Dard was examining one of the knives--a folding knife with abroad single-edged blade, locked open with a spring; the handle was oftortoise shell, bolstered with brass. 

"In all my travels, " he said, "I never saw a knife of this workmanshipbefore. Tell me, Coru-hin-Irigod, do you know from what country theseoutland slaves of Nebu-hin-Abenoz's come?"

"You think that might have something to do with it?" the Calera asked. 

"It could. I think that these people might not have been born slaves, but people taken captive. Suppose, at some time, there had been soldto Nebu-hin-Abenoz, and sold elsewhere by him, one who was a person ofconsequence--the son of a king, or the priest of some god, " GathonDard suggested. 

"By Safar, yes! And now that nation, wherever it is, is at blood-feudwith us, " Cavu-hin-Avoran said. "This must be thought about; it is anill thing to have unknown enemies. "

"Look!" a Calera who had begun to strip the three dead men cried. "These are not of the Usasu cities, or any other people of this land. See, they are uncircumcised!"

"Many of the slaves whom Nebu-hin-Abenoz brought to Careba from thehills have been uncircumcised, " Coru-hin-Irigod said. "Jeseru, I thinkyou have your sights on the heart of it. " He frowned. "Now, think you, will those who had this done be satisfied, or will they carry on theirhatred against all of us?"

"A hard question, " Antrath Alv said. "You Caleras do not serve ourgods, but you are our friends. Suffer me to go apart and pray; I wouldtake counsel with the gods, that they may aid us all in this. "

 * * * * *

[Illustration:]

[Illustration:]

Part 2

It was full daylight, but the sun was hidden; a thin rain fell on thelanding around at Police Terminal Dhergabar Equivalent when Vall andDalla left the rocket. Across the black lavalike pavement, they couldsee the bulky form of Tortha Karf, hunched under a long cloak, withhis flat cap pulled down over his brow. He shook hands with Vall andkissed cheeks with Dalla when they joined him. 

"Car's over here, " he said, nodding toward the waiting vehicle. "Yesterday wasn't one of our better days, was it?"

"No. It wasn't. " Vall agreed. They climbed into the car, and thedriver lifted straight up to two thousand feet and turned, soaringdown to land on the Chief's Headquarters Building, a mile away. "We'renot completely stopped, sir. Ranthar Jard is working on a few ideasthat may lead him to the Kholghoor time lines where the Wizard Tradersare operating. If we can't get them through their output, we may nailthem at the intake. "

"Unless they've gotten the wind up and closed down all theiroperations, " Tortha Karf said. 

"I doubt if they've done that, Chief, " Vall replied. "We don't knowwho these people are, of course, and it's hard to judge theirreactions, but they're willing to take chances for big gains. Ibelieve they think they're safe, now that they've closed out thecompromised time line and killed the only witness against them. "

"Well, what's Ranthar Jard doing?"

"Trying to locate the sub-sector and probability belt from what theslaves can tell him about their religious beliefs, about the localking, and the prince of Jhirda, and the noble families of theneighborhood, " Vall said. "When he has it localized as closely as hecan, he's going to start pelting the whole paratemporal area withphotographic auto-return balls dropped from aircars on Police Terminalover the spatial equivalents of a couple of Croutha-conquered cities. As soon as he gets a photo that shows Croutha with firearms, he'llhave a Wizard Trader time line. "

"Sounds simple, " the Chief said. The car landed, and he helped Dallaout. "I suppose both you and he know how many chances against one hehas of finding anything. " They went over to an antigrav-shaft andfloated down to the floor on which Tortha Karf had a duplicate of theoffice in the Paratime Building on Home Time Line. "It's the onlychance we have, though. "

"There's one thing that bothers me, " Dalla said, as they entered theoffice and went back behind the horseshoe-shaped desk. "I understandthat the news about this didn't break on Home Time Line till the latemorning of One-Six-One Day. Nebu-hin-Abenoz was murdered at about 1700local time, which would be 0100 this morning Dhergabar time. Thatwould give this gang fourteen hours to hear the news, transmit it totheir base, and get these three men hypno-conditioned, disguised, transposed to this Esaron Sector time line, and into Careba. " Sheshook her head. "That's pretty fast work. "

Tortha Karf looked sidewise at Verkan Vall. "Your girl has the makingsof a cop, Vall, " he commented. 

"She's been a big help, on Esaron and Kholghoor Sectors, " Vall said. "She wants to stay with it and help me; I'll be very glad to have herwith me. "

Tortha Karf nodded. He knew, too, that Dalla wouldn't want to have togo back to Home Time Line and wait the long investigation out. 

"Of course; we can use all the help we can get. I think we can get alot from Dalla. Fix her up with some kind of a title and policestatus--technical-expert, assistant, or something like that. " Heclasped hands, man-fashion, with her. "Glad to have you on the copswith us, Dalla, " he said. Then he turned to Vall. "There was almosttwenty-four hours between the time I heard about this and when thisblasted Yandar Yadd got hold of the story. Of all the infernal, irresponsible--" He almost choked with indignation. "And it wasanother fourteen hours between the time Skordran sent in his reportand I heard about it. "

"Golzan Doth sent in a report to his company about the same timeSkordran Kirv made his first report to his Sector-Regional Subchief. "Vall mentioned. 

"That might be it, " Tortha Karf considered. "I wish there were anotherexplanation, because that implies a very extensive intelligencenetwork, which means a big organization. But I'm afraid that's it. Iwish I could pull in everybody in Consolidated Outtime Foodstuffs whohandled that report, and narco-hypnotize them. Of course, we can't dothings like that on Home Time Line, and with the political situationwhat it is now--"

"Why, what's been happening, Chief?"

Tortha Karf swore with weary bitterness. "Salgath Trod's what's beenhappening. At first, after Yandar Yadd broke the story on the air, there was just a lot of unorganized Opposition sniping in Council;Salgath waited till the middle of the afternoon, when the Managementmembers were beginning to rally, and took the floor. The Centrists andRight Moderates were trying the appeal-to-reason approach; that did asmuch good as trying to put out a Fifth Level forest fire with ahand-extinguisher. Finally. Salgath got a motion of censure againstthe Management recognized. That means a confidence vote in ten days. Salgath has a rabble of Leftists and dissident Centrists with him; Idoubt if he can muster enough votes to overturn the Management, butit's going to make things rough for us. "

"Which may be just the reason Salgath started this uproar, " Vallsuggested. 

"That, " Tortha Karf said, "is being considered; there is a discreetinquiry being made into Salgath Trod's associates, his sources ofincome, and so on. Nothing has turned up as yet, but we have hopes. "

"I believe, " Vall said, "that we have a better chance right on HomeTime Line than outtime. "

Tortha Karf looked up sharply. "So?" he asked. 

Vall was stuffing tobacco into a pipe. "Yes. Chief. We have a bigcriminal organization--let's call it the Slave Trust, for aconvenience-label. The people who run it aren't stupid. The fact thatthey've been shipping slaves to the Esaron Sector for ten years beforewe found out about it proves that. So does the speed with which theygot rid of this Nebu-hin-Abenoz, right in front of a pair of ourdetectives. For that matter, so does the speed with which they movedin to exploit this Croutha invasion of Kholghoor Sector India. 

"Well, I've studied illegal and subversive organizations all overparatime, and among the really successful ones, there are a fewuniform principles. One is cellular organization--small groups, actingin isolation from one another, coöperating with other cells butignorant of their composition. Another is the principle of no upwardcontact--leaders contacting their subordinates through contact-blocksand ignorant intermediaries. And another is a willingness to kill offanybody who looks like a potential betrayer or forced witness. Thelate Nebu-hin-Abenoz, for instance. 

"I'll be willing to bet that if we pick up some of these WizardTraders, say, or a gang that's selling slaves to some Nebu-hin-Abenozpersonality on some other time line, and narco-hypnotize them, allthey'll be able to do will be name a few immediate associates, and thegroup leader will know that he's contacted from time to time by somestranger with orders, and that he can make emergency contacts onlythrough some blind accommodation-address. The men who are running thisare right on Home Time Line, many of them in positions of prominence, and if we can catch one of them and narco-hyp him, we can start achain-reaction of disclosures all through this Slave Trust. "

"How are we going to get at these top men?" Tortha Karf wanted toknow. "Advertise for them on telecast?"

"They'll leave traces; they won't be able to avoid it. I think, rightnow, that Salgath Trod is one of them. I think there are otherprominent politicians, and business people. Look for irregularitiesand peculiarities in outtime currency-exchange transactions. Forinstance, to sections in Esaron Sector _obus_. Or big gold bulliontransactions. "

"Yes. And if they have any really elaborate outtime bases, they'llneed equipment that can only be gotten on Home Time Line, " Tortha Karfadded. "Paratemporal conveyer parts, and field-conductor mesh. Youcan't just walk into a hardware store and buy that sort of thing. "

Dalla leaned forward to drop her cigarette ash into a tray. 

"Try looking into the Bureau of Psychological Hygiene, " she suggested. "That's where you'll really strike it rich. "

Vall and Tortha Karf both turned abruptly and looked at her for aninstant. 

"Go on, " Tortha Karf encouraged. "This sounds interesting. "

"The people back of this, " Dalla said, "are definitely classifiable ascriminals. They may never perform a criminal act themselves, but theygive orders for and profit from such acts, and they must possess themotivation and psychology of criminals. We define people as criminalswhen they suffer from psychological aberrations of an antisocialcharacter, usually paranoid--excessive egoism, disregard for therights of others, inability to recognize the social necessity formutual coöperation and confidence. On Home Time Line, we haveuniversal psychological testing, for the purpose of detecting andeliminating such characteristics. "

"It seems to have failed in this case, " Tortha Karf began, thensnapped his fingers. "Of course! How blasted silly can I get, when I'mnot trying?"

"Yes, of course, " Verkan Vall agreed. "Find out how these peoplemissed being spotted by psychotesting; that'll lead us to _who_ missedbeing tested adequately, and also who got into the Bureau ofPsychological Hygiene who didn't belong there. "

"I think you ought to give an investigation of the whole BuPsychHygsetup very high priority, " Dalla said. "A psychotest is only as goodas the people who give it, and if we have criminals administeringthese tests--"

"We have our friends on Executive Council, " Tortha Karf said. "I'llsee that that point is raised when Council re-convenes. " He looked atthe clock. "That'll be in three hours, by the way. If it doesn'taccomplish another thing, it'll put Salgath Trod in the middle. Hecan't demand an investigation of the Paratime Police out of one sideof his mouth and oppose an investigation of Psychological Hygiene outof the other. Now what else have we to talk about?"

[Illustration:]

"Those hundred slaves we got off the Esaron Sector, " Vall said. "Whatare we going to do with them? And if we locate the time line theslavers have their bases on, we'll have hundreds, probably thousands, more. "

"We can't sort them out and send them back to their own time lines, even if that would be desirable, " Tortha Karf decided. "Why, settlethem somewhere on the Service Sector. I know, the ParatimeTransposition Code limits the Service Sector to natives of time linesbelow second-order barbarism, but the Paratime Transposition Code hasbeen so badly battered by this business that a few more minor literalinfractions here and there won't make any difference. Where are theynow?"

"Police Terminal, Nharkan Equivalent. "

"Better hold them there, for the time being. We may have to open a newServSec time line to take care of all the slaves we find, if we canlocate the outtime base line these people are using--Vall, thisthing's too big to handle as a routine operation, along with our otherwork. You take charge of it. Set up your headquarters here, and helpyourself to anything in the way of personnel and equipment you need. And bear in mind that this confidence vote is coming up in tendays--on the morning of One-Seven-Two Day. I'm not asking for anymiracles, but if we don't get this thing cleared up by then, we're infor trouble. "

"I realize that, sir. Dalla, you'd better go back to Home Time Line, with the Chief, " he said. "There's nothing you can do to help me, here, at present. Get some rest, and then try to wangle an invitationfor the two of us to dinner at Thalvan Dras' apartments this evening. "He turned back to Tortha Karf. "Even if he never pays any attention tobusiness, Dras still owns Consolidated Outtime Foodstuffs, " he said. "He might be able to find out, or help us find out, how the storyabout those slaves leaked out of his company. "

"Well, that won't take much doing, " Dalla said. "If there's as muchexcitement on Home Time Line as I think, Dras would turn somersaultsand jump through hoops to get us to one of his dinners, right now. "

 * * * * *

Salgath Trod pushed the litter of papers and record-tape spools to oneside impatiently. 

"Well, what else did you expect?" he demanded. "This was the logicalnext move. BuPsychHyg is supposed to detect anybody who believes inlooking out for his own interests first, and condition him into apious law-abiding sucker. Well, the sacred Bureau of Sucker-Makersslipped up on a lot of us. It's a natural alibi for Tortha Karf. "

"It's also a lot of grief for all of us, " the young man in thewrap-around tunic added. "I don't want my psychotests reviewed by someduty-struck bigot who can't be reasoned with, and neither do you. "

"I'm getting something organized to counter that, " Salgath Trod said. "I'm going to attack the whole scientific basis of psychotesting. There's Dr. Frasthor Klav; he's always contended that what are calledcriminal tendencies are the result of the individual's totalenvironment, and that psychotesting and personality-analysis arevalueless, because the total environment changes from day to day, evenfrom hour to hour--"

"That won't do, " the nameless young man who was the messenger ofsomebody equally nameless retorted. "Frasthor's a crackpot; noreputable psychologist or psychist gives his opinions a moment'sconsideration. And besides, we don't want to attack PsychologicalHygiene. The people in it with whom we can do business are oursafeguard; they've given all of us a clean bill of mental health, andwe have papers to prove it. What we have to do is to make it appearthat that incident on the Esaron Sector is all there is to this, andalso involve the Paratime Police themselves. The slavers are allparacops. It isn't the fault of BuPsychHyg, because the ParatimePolice have their own psychotesting staff. That's where the troubleis; the paracops haven't been adequately testing their own personnel. "

"Now how are you going to do that?" Salgath Trod asked disdainfully. 

"You'll take the floor, the first thing tomorrow, and utilize thesenew revelations about the Wizard Traders. You'll accuse the ParatimePolice of being the Wizard Traders themselves. Why not? They havetheir own paratemporal transposition equipment shops on PoliceTerminal, they have facilities for manufacturing duplicates of anykind of outtime items, like the firearms, for instance, and they knowwhich time lines on which sectors are being exploited by legitimateparatime traders and which aren't. What's to prevent a gang ofunscrupulous paracops from moving in on a few unexploited Kholghoortime lines, buying captives from the Croutha, and shipping them to theEsaron Sector?"

"Then why would they let a thing like this get out?" Salgath Trodinquired. 

"Somebody slipped up and moved a lot of slaves onto an exploitedEsaron time line. Or, rather, Consolidated Outtime Foodstuffsestablished a plantation on a time line they were shipping slaves to. Parenthetically, that's what really did happen; the mistake our peoplemade was in not closing out that time line as soon as ConsolidatedFoodstuffs moved in, " the young man said. 

"So, this Skordran Kirv, who is a dumb boy who doesn't know what thescore is, found these slaves and blatted about it to this Golzan Doth, and Golzan reported it to his company, and it couldn't be hushed up, so now Tortha Karf is trying to scare the public with ghost storiesabout a gigantic paratemporal conspiracy, to get more appropriationsand more power. "

"How long do you think I'd get away with that?" Salgath Trod demanded. "I can only stretch parliamentary immunity so far. Sooner or later, I'd have to make formal charges to a special judicial committee, andthat would mean narco-hypnosis, and then it would all come out. "

"You'll have proof, " the young man said. "We'll produce a couple ofthese Kharandas whom Verkan Vall didn't get hold of. Undernarco-hypnosis, they'll testify that they saw a couple of WizardTraders take their robes off. Under the robes were Paratime Policeuniforms. Do you follow me?"

Salgath Trod made a noise of angry disgust. 

"That's ridiculous! I suppose these Kharandas will be given what isdeludedly known as memory obliteration, and a set of pseudo-memories;how long do you think that would last? About three ten-days. There isno such thing as memory obliteration; there's memory-suppression, andpseudo-memory overlay. You can't get behind that with any quickienarco-hypnosis in the back room of any police post, I'll admit that, "he said. "But a skilled psychist can discover, inside of five minutes, when a narco-hypnotized subject is carrying a load of false memories, and in time, and not too much time, all that top layer of falsememories and blockages can be peeled off. And then where would we be?"

"Now wait a minute, Councilman. This isn't just something I dreamedup, " the visitor said. "This was decided upon at the top. At the verytop. "

"I don't care whose idea it was, " Salgath Trod snapped. "The wholething is idiotic, and I won't have anything to do with it. "

The visitor's face froze. All the respect vanished from his manner andtone; his voice was like ice cakes grating together in a winter river. 

"Look, Salgath; this is an Organization order, " he said. "You don'trefuse to obey Organization orders, and you don't quit theOrganization. Now get smart, big boy; do what you're told to. " He tooka spool of record tape from his pocket and laid it on the desk. "Outline for your speech; put it in your own words, but follow itexactly. " He stood watching Salgath Trod for a moment. "I won't bothertelling you what'll happen to you if you don't, " he added. "You canfigure that out for yourself. "

With that, he turned and went out the private door. For a while, Salgath Trod sat staring after him. Once he put his hand out towardthe spool, then jerked it back as though the thing were radioactive. Once he looked at the clock; it was just 1600. 

 * * * * *

The green aircar settled onto the landing stage; Verkan Vall, on thefront seat beside the driver, opened the door. 

"Want me to call for you later, Assistant Verkan?" the driver asked. 

"No thank you, Drenth. My wife and I are going to a dinner-party, andwe'll probably go night-clubbing afterward. Tomorrow morning, all theanti-Management commentators will be yakking about my carousing aroundwhen I ought to be battling the Slave Trust. No use advertising myselfwith an official car, and giving them a chance to add, 'at publicexpense. '"

"Well, have some fun while you can, " the driver advised, reaching forthe car-radio phone. "Want me to check you in here, sir?"

"Yes, if you will. Thank you. Drenth. "

Kandagro, his human servant, admitted him to the apartment six floorsdown. 

"Mistress Dalla is dressing, " he said. "She asked me to tell you thatyou are invited to dinner, this evening, with Thalvan Dras at hisapartment. "

Vall nodded. "Ill talk to her about it now, " he said. "Lay out mydress uniform: short jacket, boots and breeches, and needler. "

"Yes, master: I'll go lay out your things and get your bath ready. "

The servant turned and went into the alcove which gave access to thedressing rooms, turning right into Vall's. Vall followed him, turningleft into his wife's. 

"Oh, Dalla!" he called. 

"In here!" her voice came out of her bathroom. 

He passed through the dressing room, to find her stretched on aplastic-sheeted couch, while her maid, Rendarra, was rubbing her bodyvigorously with some pungent-smelling stuff about the consistency ofmachine-grease. Her face was masked in the stuff, and her hair wascovered with an elastic cap. He had always suspected that beauty wasthe real feminine religion, from the willingness of its devotees tosubmit to martyrdom for it. She wiggled a hand at him in greeting. 

"How did it go?" she asked. 

"So-so. I organized myself a sort of miniature police force within apolice force and I have liaison officers in every organization down toSector Regional so that I can be informed promptly in case anythingnew turns up anywhere. What's been happening on Home Time Line? Ipicked up a news-summary at Paratime Police Headquarters; it seemsthat a lot more stuff has leaked out. Kholghoor Sector, Wizard Tradersand all. How'd it happen?"

Dalla rolled over to allow Rendarra to rub the blue-green grease onher back. 

"Consolidated Outtime Foodstuffs let a gang of reporters in, today. Ithink they're afraid somebody will accuse them of complicity, and theywant to get their side of it before the public. All our crowd are offthat Time line except a couple of detectives at the plantation. "

"I know. " He smiled; Dalla was thinking of the Paratime Police as "ourcrowd" now. "How about this dinner at Dras' place?"

"Oh, that was easy. " She shifted position again. "I just called Drasup and told him that our vacation was off, and he invited us before Icould begin hinting. What are you going to wear?"

"Short-jacket greens; I can carry a needler with that uniform, evenwear it at the table. I don't think it's smart for me to run aroundunarmed, even on Home Time Line. Especially on Home Time Line, " heamended. "When's this affair going to start, and how long willRendarra take to get that goo off you?"

 * * * * *

Salgath Trod left his aircar at the top landing stage of his apartmentbuilding and sent it away to the hangars under robot control; heglanced about him as he went toward the antigrav shaft. There were adozen vehicles in the air above; any of them might have followed himfrom the Paratime Building. He had no doubt that he had been underconstant surveillance from the moment the nameless messenger haddelivered the Organization's ultimatum. Until he delivered thatspeech, the next morning, or manifested an intention of refusing to doso, however, he would be safe. After that--

Alone in his office, he had reviewed the situation point by point, andthen gone back and reviewed it again; the conclusion was inescapable. The Organization had ordered him to make an accusation which hehimself knew to be false; that was the first premise. The conclusionwas that he would be killed as soon as he had made it. That was thetrouble with being mixed up with that kind of people--you wereexpendable, and sooner or later, they would decide that they wouldhave to expend you. And what could you do?

To begin with, an accusation of criminal malfeasance made against aManagement or Paratime Commission agency on the floor of ExecutiveCouncil was tantamount to an accusation made in court; automatically, the accuser became a criminal prosecutor, and would have to repeat hisaccusation under narco-hypnosis. Then the whole story would come out, bit by bit, back to its beginning in that first illegal deal inIndo-Turanian opium, diverted from trade with the Khiftan Sector andsold on Second Level Luvarian Empire Sector, and the deals inradioactive poisons, and the slave trade. He would be able to name fewnames--the Organization kept its activities too well compartmented forthat--but he could talk of things that had happened, and when, andwhere, and on what paratemporal areas. 

No. The Organization wouldn't let that happen, and the only way itcould be prevented would be by the death of Salgath Trod, as soon ashe had made his speech. All the talk of providing him withcorroborative evidence was silly; it had been intended to lead himmore trustingly to the slaughter. They'd kill him, of course, in someway that would be calculated to substantiate the story he would nolonger be able to repudiate. The killer, who would be promptly rayeddead by somebody else, would wear a Paratime Police uniform, orsomething like that. That was of no importance, however; by then, he'dbe beyond caring. 

 * * * * *

One of his three ServSec Prole servants--the slim brown girl who washis housekeeper and hostess, and also his mistress--admitted him tothe apartment. He kissed her perfunctorily and closed the door behindhim. 

"You're tired, " she said. "Let me call Nindrandigro and have him bringyou chilled wine; lie down and rest until dinner. "

"No, no; I want brandy. " He went to a cellaret and got out a decanterand goblet, pouring himself a drink. "How soon will dinner be ready?"

The brown girl squeezed a little golden globe that hung on a chainaround her neck; a tiny voice, inside it, repeated: "Eighteentwenty-three ten, eighteen twenty-three eleven, eighteen twenty-threetwelve--"

"In half an hour. It's still in the robo-chef, " she told him. 

He downed half the goblet-full, set it down, and went to a painting, abrutal scarlet and apple-green abstraction, that hung on the wall. Swinging it aside and revealing the safe behind it, he used hisidentity-sigil, took out a wad of Paratemporal Exchange Bank notes andgave them to the girl. 

"Here, Zinganna; take these, and take Nindrandigro and Calilla out forthe evening. Go where you can all have a good time, and don't comeback till after midnight. There will be some business transacted here, and I want them out of this. Get them out of here as soon as you can;I'll see to the dinner myself. Spend all of that you want to. "

The girl riffled through the wad of banknotes. "Why, _thank_ you, Trod!" She threw her arms around his neck and kissed himenthusiastically. "I'll go tell them at once. "

"And have a good time, Zinganna; have the best time you possibly can, "he told her, embracing and kissing her. "Now, get out of here; I haveto keep my mind on business. "

When she had gone, he finished his drink and poured another. He drewand checked his needler. Then, after checking the window-shielding andactivating the outside viewscreens, he lit a cheroot and sat down atthe desk, his goblet and his needler in front of him, to wait untilthe servants were gone. 

There was only one way out alive. He knew that, and yet he neededbrandy, and a great deal of mental effort, to steel himself for it. Psycho-rehabilitation was a dreadful thing to face. There would bealmost a year of unremitting agony, physical and mental, worse than aKhiftan torture rack. There would be the shame of having his innermostsecrets poured out of him by the psychotherapists, and, at the end, there would emerge someone who would not be Salgath Trod, or anybodylike Salgath Trod, and he would have to learn to know this stranger, and build a new life for him. 

In one of the viewscreens, he saw the door to the service hallwayopen. Zinganna, in a black evening gown and a black velvet cloak, andCalilla, the housemaid, in what she believed to be a reasonablefacsimile of fashionable First Level dress, and Nindrandigro, in oneof his master's evening suits, emerged. Salgath Trod waited until theyhad gone down the hall to the antigrav shaft, and then he turned onthe visiphone, checked the security, set it for sealed beamcommunication, and punched out a combination. 

A girl in a green tunic looked out of the screen. 

"Paratime Police, " she said. "Office of Chief Tortha. "

"I am Executive Councilman Salgath Trod, " he told her. "I am, and forthe past fifteen years have been, criminally involved with theorganization responsible for the slave trade which recently came tolight on Third Level Esaron. I give myself up unconditionally; I amwilling to make full confession under narco-hypnosis, and will acceptwhatever disposition of my case is lawfully judged fit. You'll have tosend an escort for me; I might start from my apartment alone, but I'dbe killed before I got to your headquarters--"

The girl, who had begun to listen in the bored manner of publicservants phone girls, was staring wide-eyed. 

"Just a moment, Councilman Salgath; I'll put you through to ChiefTortha. "

 * * * * *

The dinner lacked a half hour of being served; Thalvan Dras' guestsloitered about the drawing room, sampling appetizers and chilleddrinks and chatting in groups. It wasn't the artistic crowd usual atThalvan Dras' dinners; most of the guests seemed to be business orpolitical people. Thalvan Dras had gotten Vall and Dalla into thesmall group around him, along with pudgy, infantile-faced BrogothZaln, his confidential secretary, and Javrath Brend, his financialattorney. 

"I don't see why they're making such a fuss about it, " one of theBanking Cartel people was saying. "Causing a lot of public excitementall out of proportion to the importance of the affair. After all, those people were slaves on their own time line, and if anything, they're much better off on the Esaron Sector than they would be ascaptives of the Croutha. As far as that goes, what's the differencebetween that and the way we drag these Fourth Level PrimitiveSector-Complex people off to Fifth Level Service Sector to work forus?"

"Oh, there's a big difference, Farn, " Javrath Brend said. "We recruitthose Fourth Level Primitives out of probability worlds of Stone Agesavagery, and transpose them to our own Fifth Level time lines, practically outtime extensions of the Home Time Line. There'sabsolutely no question of the Paratime Secret being compromised. "

[Illustration:]

"Beside, we need a certain amount of human labor, for tasks requiringoriginal thought and decision that are beyond the ability of robots, and most of it is work our Citizens simply wouldn't perform, " ThalvanDras added. 

"Well, from a moral standpoint, wouldn't these Esaron Sector peoplewho buy the slaves justify slavery in the same terms?" a woman whomVall had identified as a Left Moderate Council Member asked. 

"There's still a big difference, " Dalla told her. "The ServSec Prolesaren't beaten or tortured or chained; we don't break up families orseparate friends. When we recruit Fourth Level Primitives, we takewhole tribes, and they come willingly. And--"

One of Thalvan Dras' black-liveried human servants, of the class underdiscussion, approached Vall. 

"A visiphone call for your lordship, " he whispered. "Chief Tortha Karfcalling. If your lordship will come this way--"

In a screen-booth outside, Vall found Tortha Karf looking out of thescreen; he was seated at his desk, fiddling with a gold multicolorpen. 

"Oh, Vall; something interesting has just come up. " He spoke in avoice of forced calmness. "I can't go into it now, but you'll want tohear about it. I'm sending a car for you. Better bring Dalla along;she'll want in on it, too. "

"Right; we'll be on the top south-west landing stage in a fewminutes. "

Dalla was still heatedly repudiating any resemblance between thenormal First Level methods of labor-recruitment and the activities ofthe Wizard Traders; she had just finished the story of the woman whosechild had been brained when Vall rejoined the group. 

"Dras, I'm awfully sorry, " he said. "This is the second time insuccession that Dalla and I have had to bolt away from here, butpolicemen are like doctors--always on call, and consequentlyunreliable guests. While you're feasting, think commiseratingly ofDalla and me; we'll probably be having a sandwich and a cup of coffeesomewhere. "

"I'm terribly sorry. " Thalvan Dras replied. "We had all been lookingforward--Well! Brogoth, have a car called for Vall and Dalla. "

"Police car coming for us; it's probably on the landing stage now, "Vall said. "Well, good-by, everybody. Coming, Dalla?"

 * * * * *

They had a few minutes to wait, under the marquee, before the greenpolice aircar landed and came rolling across the rain-wet surface ofthe landing stage. Crossing to it and opening the rear door, he putDalla in and climbed in after her, slamming the door. It was only thenthat he saw Tortha Karf hunched down in the rear seat. He motionedthem to silence, and did not speak until the car was rising above thebuilding. 

"I wanted to fill you in on this, as soon as possible, " he said. "Yourhunch about Salgath Trod was good; just a few minutes before I calledyou, he called me. He says this slave trade is the work of somethinghe calls the Organization; says he's been taking orders from them foryears. His attack on the Management and motion for a censure-votewere dictated from Organization top echelon. Now he's convinced thatthey're going to force him to make false accusations against theParatime Police and then kill him before he's compelled to repeat hischarges under narco-hypnosis. So he's offered to surrender and tradeinformation for protection. "

"How much does he know?" Vall asked. 

Tortha Karf shook his head. "Not as much as he claims to, I suppose;he wouldn't want to reduce his own trade-in value. But he's beeninvolved in this thing for the last fifteen years, and with hispolitical prominence, he'd know quite a lot. "

"We can protect him from his own gang; can we protect him frompsycho-rehabilitation?"

"No, and he knows it. He's willing to accept that. He seems to thinkthat death at the hands of his own associates is the only otheralternative. Probably right, too. "

The floodlighted green towers of the Paratime Building were wheelingunder them as they circled down. 

"Why would they sacrifice a valuable accomplice like Salgath Trod, inorder to make a transparently false accusation against us?" Vallwondered. 

"Ha, that's our new rookie cop's idea!" Tortha Karf chuckled, noddingtoward Dalla. "We got Zortan Harn to introduce an urgent-businessmotion to appoint a committee to investigate BuPsychHyg, this morning. The motion passed, and this is the reaction to it. The Organization'sscared. Just as Dalla predicted, they don't want us finding out howpeople with potentially criminal characteristics missed being spottedby psychotesting. Salgath Trod is being sacrificed to block or delaythat. "

Vall nodded as the wheels bumped on the landing stage and the antigravfield went off. That was the sort of thing that happened when youstarted on a really fruitful line of investigation. They got out andhurried over under the marquee, the car lifting and moving off towardthe hangars. This was the real break; no matter how this Organizationmight be compartmented, a man like Salgath Trod would know a greatdeal. He would name names, and the bearers of those names, arrestedand narco-hypnotized, would name other names, in a perfect chainreaction of confessions and betrayals. 

Another police car had landed just ahead of them, and three men wereclimbing out; two were in Paratime Police green, and the third, hand-cuffed, was in Service Sector Proletarian garb. At first, Vallthough that Salgath Trod had been brought in disguised as a Proleprisoner, and then he saw that the prisoner was short and stocky, notat all like the slender and elegant politician. The two officers whohad brought him in were talking to a lieutenant, Sothran Barth, outside the antigrav shaft kiosk. As Vall and Tortha Karf and Dallawalked over, the car which had brought them lifted out. 

"Something that just came in from Industrial Twenty-four, Chief, "Lieutenant Sothran said in answer to Tortha Karf's question. "May befor Assistant Verkan's desk. "

"He's a Prole named Yandragno, sir, " one of the policemen said. "Industrial Sector Constabulary grabbed him peddling Martian hellweedcigarettes to the girls in a textile mill at Kangabar Equivalent. Captain Jamzar thinks he may have gotten them from somebody in theOrganization. "

 * * * * *

A little warning bell began ringing in the back of Verkan Vall's mind, but at first he could not consciously identify the cause of hissuspicions. He looked the two policemen and their prisoner overcarefully, but could see nothing visibly wrong with them. Then anothercar came in for a landing and rolled over under the marquee; the dooropened, and a police officer got out, followed by an elegantly dressedcivilian whom he recognized at once as Salgath Trod. A secondpoliceman was emerging from the car when Vall suddenly realized whatit was that had disturbed him. 

It had been Salgath Trod, himself, less than half an hour ago, who hadintroduced the term, "the Organization, " to the Paratime Police. Atthat time, if these people were what they claimed to be, they wouldhave been in transposition from Industrial Twenty-four, on the FifthLevel. Immediately, he reached for his needler. He was clearing it ofthe holster when things began happening. 

The handcuffs fell from the "prisoner's" wrists; he jerked aneutron-disruption blaster from under his jacket. Vall, his needleralready drawn, rayed the fellow dead before he could aim it, then sawthat the two pseudo-policemen had drawn their needlers and were aimingin the direction of Salgath Trod. There were no flashes or reports;only the spot of light that had winked on and off under Vall's rearsight had told him that his weapon had been activated. He saw itappear again as the sights centered on one of the "policemen. " Then hesaw the other imposter's needler aimed at himself. That was the lastthing he expected ever to see, in that life; he tried to shift his ownweapon, and time seemed frozen, with his arm barely moving. Then therewas a white blur as Dalla's cloak moved in front of him, and theneedler dropped from the fingers of the disguised murderer. Time wentback to normal for him; he safetied his own weapon and dropped it, jumping forward. 

He grabbed the fellow in the green uniform by the nose with his lefthand, and punched him hard in the pit of the stomach with his rightfist. The man's mouth flew open, and a green capsule, the size andshape of a small bean, flew out. Pushing Dalla aside before she wouldstep on it, he kicked the murderer in the stomach, doubling him over, and chopped him on the base of the skull with the edge of his hand. The pseudo-policeman dropped senseless. 

With a handful of handkerchief-tissue from his pocket, he picked upthe disgorged capsule, wrapping it carefully after making sure that itwas unbroken. Then he looked around. The other two assassins weredead. Tortha Karf, who had been looking at the man in Proletariandress whom Vall had killed first, turned, looked in another direction, and then cursed. Vall followed his eyes, and cursed also. One of thetwo policemen who had gotten out of the aircar was dead, too, and sowas the all-important witness, Salgath Trod--as dead asNebu-hin-Abenoz, a hundred thousand parayears away. 

 * * * * *

The whole thing had ended within thirty seconds; for about half aslong, everybody waited, poised in a sort of action-vacuum, forsomething else to happen. Dalla had dropped the shoulder-bag withwhich she had clubbed the prisoner's needler out of his hand, andcaught up the fallen weapon. When she saw that the man was down andmotionless, she laid it aside and began picking up the glittering orsilken trifles that had spilled from the burst bag. Vall retrieved hisown weapon, glanced over it, and holstered it. Sothran Barth, thelieutenant in charge of the landing stage, was bawling orders, and menwere coming out of the ready-room and piling into vehicles to pursuethe aircar which had brought the assassins. 

"Barth!" Vall called. "Have you a hypodermic and a sleep-drug ampoule?Well, give this boy a shot; he's only impact-stunned. Be careful ofhim; he's important. " He glanced around the landing-stage. "Fact is, he's all we have to show for this business. "

Then he stooped to help Dalla gather her things, picking up a few ofthem--a lighter, a tiny crystal perfume flask, miraculously unbroken, a face-powder box which had sprung open and spilled half its contents. He handed them to her, while Sothran Barth bent over the prisoner andgave him an injection, then went to the body of the otherpseudo-policeman, forcing open his mouth. In his cheek, stillunbroken, was a second capsule, which he added to the first. TorthaKarf was watching him. 

"Same gang that killed that Carera slaver on Esaron Sector?" he asked. "Of course, exactly the same general procedure. Let's have a look atthe other one. "

The man in Proletarian dress must have had his capsule between hismolars when he had been killed; it was broken, and there was abrownish discoloration and chemical odor in his mouth. 

"Second time we've had a witness killed off under our noses, " TorthaKarf said. "We're going to have to smarten up in a hurry. "

"Here's one of us who doesn't have to, much, " Vall said, noddingtoward Dalla. "She knocked a needler out of one man's hand, and wetook him alive. The Force owes her a new shoulder-bag: she spoiledthat one using it for a club. "

"Best shoulder-bag we can find you, Dalla, " Tortha Karf promised. "You're promoted, herewith, to Special Chief's Assistant's SpecialAssistant--You know, this Organization murder-section is good; theycould kill anybody. It won't be long before they assign a squad to us. Blast it, I don't want to have to go around bodyguarded like a FourthLevel dictator, but--"

A detective came out of the control room and approached. 

"Screen call for you, sir, " he told Tortha Karf. "One of the newsservices wants a comment on a story they've just picked up that we'veillegally arrested Councilman Salgath and are holding himincommunicado and searching his apartment. "

"That's the Organization, " Vall said. "They don't know how their boysmade out; they're hoping we'll tell them. "

"No comment, " Tortha Karf said. "Call the girl on my switchboard andtell her to answer any other news-service calls. We have nothing tosay at this time, but there will be a public statement at . .. At2330, " he decided after a glance at his watch. "That'll give us timeto agree on a publicity line to adopt. Lieutenant Sothran! Take chargeup here. Get all these bodies out of sight somewhere, including thoseof Councilman Salgath and Detective Malthor. Don't let anybody talkabout this; put a blackout on the whole story. Vall, you and Dalla and. .. Oh, you, over there; take the prisoner down to my office. Sothran, any reports from any of the cars that were chasing that fake policecar?"

Verkan Vall and Dalla were sitting behind Tortha Karf's desk; Vall wasissuing orders over the intercom and talking to the detectives who hadremained at Salgath Trod's apartment by visiscreen; Dalla was sortingover the things she had spilled when her bag had burst. They bothlooked up as Tortha Karf came in and joined them. 

"The prisoner's still under the drug, " the Chief said. "He'll be outfor a couple of hours; the psych-techs want to let him come out of itnaturally and sleep naturally for a while before they give him ahypno. He's not a ServSec Prole; uncircumcised, never had anysyntho-enzyme shots or immunizations, and none of the longevityoperations or grafts. Same thing for the two stiffs. And no identityrecords on any of the three. "

"The men at Salgath's apartment say that his housekeeper and his twoservants checked out through the house conveyer for ServSecOne-Six-Five, at about 1830, " Vall said. "There's a Proleentertainment center on that time line. I suppose Salgath gave themthe evening off before he called you. "

Tortha Karf nodded. "I suppose you ordered them picked up. The newsservices are going wild about this. I had to make a preliminarystatement, to the effect that Salgath Trod was not arrested, came toHeadquarters of his own volition, and is under no restraint whatever. "

"Except, of course, a slight case of rigor mortis, " Dalla added. "Didyou mention that, Chief?"

"No, I didn't. " Tortha Karf looked as though he had quinine in hismouth. "Vall, how in blazes are we going to handle this?"

"We ought to keep Salgath's death hushed up, as long as we can, " Vallsaid. "The Organization doesn't know positively what happened here;that's why they're handing out tips to the news services. Let's try tomake them believe he's still alive and talking. "

"How can we do it?"

"There ought to be somebody on the Force close enough to SalgathTrod's anthropometric specifications that our cosmeticians could workhim over into a passable impersonation. Our story is that Salgath ison PolTerm, undergoing narco-hypnosis. We will produce an audio-visualof him as soon as he is out of narco-hyp. That will give us time tofix up an impersonator; We'll need a lot of sound-recordings ofSalgath Trod's voice, of course--"

"I'll take care of the Home Time Line end of it; as soon as we get youan impersonator, you go to work with him. Now, let's see whom we candepend on to help us with this. Lovranth Rolk, of course; Home TimeLine section of the Paratime Code Enforcement Division. And--"

 * * * * *

Verkan Vall and Dalla and Tortha Karf and four or five others lookedacross the desk and to the end of the room as the telecast screenbroke into a shifting light-pattern and then cleared. The face of theannouncer appeared; a young woman. 

"And now, we bring you the statement which Chief Tortha of theParatime Police has promised for this time. This portion of theprogram was audio-visually recorded at Paratime Police Headquartersearlier this evening. "

Tortha Karf's face appeared on the screen. His voice began anannouncement of how Executive Councilman Salgath Trod had called himby visiphone, admitting to complicity in the recently-discoveredparatemporal slave-trade. 

"Here is a recording of Councilman Salgath's call to me from hisapartment to my office at 1945 this evening. "

The screen-image shattered into light-shards and rebuilt itself:Salgath Trod, at his desk in the library of his apartment, thebrandy-goblet and the needler within reach, appeared. He began tospeak: from time to time the voice of Tortha Karf interrupted, questioning or prompting him. 

"You understand that this confession renders you liable topsycho-rehabilitation?" Tortha Karf asked. 

Yes, Councilman Salgath understood that. 

"And you agree to come voluntarily to Paratime Police Headquarters, and you will voluntarily undergo narco-hypnotic interrogation?"

Yes, Salgath Trod agreed to that. 

"I am now terminating the playback of Councilman Salgath's call tome, " Tortha Karf said, re-appearing on the screen. "At this pointCouncilman Salgath began making a statement about his criminalactivities, which we have on record. Because he named a number of hiscriminal associates, whom we have no intention of warning, thisportion of Councilman Salgath's call cannot at this time be madepublic. We have no intention of having any of these suspects escape, or of giving their associates an opportunity to murder them to preventtheir furnishing us with additional information. Incidentally, therewas an attempt, made on the landing stage of Paratime PoliceHeadquarters, to murder Councilman Salgath, when he was brought hereguarded by Paratime Police officers--"

He went on to give a colorful and, as far as possible, truthful, account of the attack by the two pseudo-policemen and theirpseudo-prisoner. As he told it, however, all three had been killedbefore they could accomplish their purpose, one of them by SalgathTrod himself. 

The image of Tortha Karf was replaced by a view of the three assassinslying on the landing stage. They all looked dead, even the one whowasn't; there was nothing to indicate that he was merely drugged. Then, one after another, their faces were shown in closeup, whileTortha Karf asked for close attention and memorization. 

"We believe that these men were Fifth Level Proles; we think that theywere under hypnotic influence or obeying posthypnotic commands whenthey made their suicidal attack. If any of you have ever seen any ofthese men before, it is your duty to inform the Paratime Police. "

 * * * * *

That ended it. Tortha Karf pressed a button in front of him and thescreen went dark. The spectators relaxed. 

"Well! Nothing like being sincere with the public, is there?" Dellacommented. "I'll remember this the next time I tune in a Managementpublic statement. "

"In about five minutes, " one of the bureau-chiefs, said, "all hell isgoing to break loose. I think the whole thing is crazy!"

"I hope you have somebody who can give a convincing impersonation, "Lovranth Rolk said. 

"Yes. A field agent named Kostran Galth, " Tortha Karf said. "We ranthe personal description cards for the whole Force through themachine; Kostran checked to within one-twentieth of one per cent; he'son Police Terminal, now, coming by rocket from Ravvanan Equivalent. Weought to have the whole thing ready for telecast by 1730 tomorrow. "

"He can't learn to imitate Salgath's voice convincingly in that time, with all the work the cosmeticians'll have to be doing on him, " Dallasaid. 

"Make up a tape of Salgath's own voice, out of that pile of recordingswe got at his apartment, and what we can get out of the news file. "Vall said. "We have phoneticists who can split syllables and splicethem together. Kostran will deliver his speech in dumb-show, and we'lldub the sound in and telecast them as one. I've messaged PolTerm toget to work on that; they can start as soon as we have the speechwritten. "

[Illustration:]

"The more it succeeds now, the worse the blow-up will be when wefinally have to admit that Salgath was killed here tonight, " the ChiefInter-officer Coördinator, Zostha Olv said. "We'd better havesomething to show the public to justify that. "

"Yes, we had, " Tortha Karf agreed. "Vall, how about the KholghoorSector operation. How far's Ranthar Jard gotten toward locating one ofthose Wizard Trader time lines?"

"Not very far, " Vall admitted. "He has it pinned down to thesub-sector, but the belt seems to be one we haven't any information atall for. Never been any legitimate penetration by paratimers. He hashis own hagiologists, and a couple borrowed from Outtime ReligiousInstitute; they've gotten everything the slaves can give them on that. About the only thing to do is start random observation withboomerang-balls. "

"Over about a hundred thousand time lines, " Zostha Olv scoffed. He wasan old man, even for his long-lived race; he had a thin nose and anarrow, bitter, mouth. "And what will he look for?"

"Croutha with guns. " Tortha Karf told him, then turned to Vall. "Can'the narrow it more than that? What have his experts been getting out ofthose slaves?"

"That I don't know, to date. " Vall looked at the clock. "I'll findout, though; I'll transpose to Police Terminal and call him up. AndSkordran Kirv. No. Vulthor Tharn; it'd hurt the old fellow's feelingsif I by-passed him and went to one of his subordinates. Half an houreach way, and at most another hour talking to Ranthar and Vulthor;there won't be anything doing here for two hours. " He rose. "See youwhen I get back. "

Dalla had turned on the telescreen again; after tuning out a danceorchestra and a comedy show, she got the image of an angry-faced manin evening clothes. 

". .. And I'm going to demand a full investigation, as soon as Councilconvenes tomorrow morning!" he was shouting. "This whole story is apreposterous insult to the integrity of the entire Executive Council, your elected representatives, and it shows the criminal lengths towhich this would-be dictator, Tortha Karf, and his jackal Verkan Vallwill go--"

"So long, jackal. " Dalla called to him as he went out. 

 * * * * *

He spent the half-hour transposition to Police Terminal sleeping. Paratime-transpositions and rocket-flights seemed to be his onlychance to get any sleep. He was still sleepy when he sat down in frontof the radio telescreen behind his duplicate of Tortha Karf's desk andput through a call to Nharkan Equivalent. It was 0600 in India; theSector Regional Deputy Subchief who was holding down Ranthar Jard'sdesk looked equally sleepy; he had a mug of coffee in front of him, and a brown-paper cigarette in his mouth. 

"Oh, hello, Assistant Verkan. Want me to call Subchief Ranthar?"

"Is he sleeping? Then for mercy's sake don't. What's the presentstatus of the investigation?"

"Well, we were dropping boomerang balls yesterday, while we had sun tomask the return-flashes. Nothing. The Croutha have taken the city ofSohram, just below the big bend of the river. Tomorrow, when we havesunlight, we're going to start boomerang-balling the central square. We may get something. "

"The Wizard Traders'll be moving in near there, about now, " Vall said. "The Croutha ought to have plenty of merchandise for them. Have yougotten anything more done on narrowing down the possible area?"

The deputy bit back a yawn and reached for his coffee mug. 

"The experts have just about pumped these slaves empty, " he said. "Thelocal religion is a mess. Seems to have started out as a Great Mothercult; then it picked up a lot of gods borrowed from other peoples;then it turned into a dualistic monotheism; then it picked up a lot ofminor gods and devils--new devils usually gods of the older pantheon. And we got a lot of gossip about the feudal wars and faction-fightsamong the nobility, and so on, all garbled, because these people arepeasants who only knew what went on on the estate of their own lord. "

"What did go on there?" Vall asked. "Ask them about recentimprovements, new buildings, new fields cleared, new paddies flooded, that sort of thing. And pick out a few of the highest IQ's from bothtime lines, and have them locate this estate on a large-scale map, anddraw plans showing the location of buildings, fields and other visiblefeatures. If you have to, teach them mapping and sketching byhypno-mech. And then drop about five hundred to a thousand boomerangballs, at regular intervals, over the whole paratemporal area. Whenyou locate a time line that gives you a picture to correspond to theirdescription, boomerang the main square in Sohram over the whole beltaround it, to find Croutha with firearms. "

The deputy looked at him for a moment then gulped more coffee. 

"Can do, Assistant Verkan. I think I'll send somebody to wake upSubchief Ranthar, right now. Want to talk to him. "

"Won't be necessary. You're recording this call, of course? Then playit back to him. And get cracking with the slaves; you want enoughinformation out of them to enable you to start boomerang balling assoon as the sun's high enough. "

 * * * * *

He broke off the connection and sent out for coffee for himself. Thenhe put through a call to Novilan Equivalent, in western North America. 

It was 1530, there, when he got Vulthor Tharn on the screen. 

"Good afternoon. Assistant Verkan. I suppose you're calling about theslave business. I've turned the entire matter over to Field AgentSkordran; gave him a temporary rank of Deputy Subchief. That's subjectto your approval and Chief Tortha's, of course--"

"Make the appointment permanent, " Vall said. "I'll have a confirmationalong from Chief Tortha directly. And let me talk to him now, if youplease. Subchief Vulthor. "

"Yes, sir. Switching you over now. " The screen went into a beautifulburst of abstract art, and cleared, after a while, with Skordran Kirvlooking out of it. 

"Hello, Deputy Skordran, and congratulations. What's come up since wehad Nebu-hin-Abenoz cut out from under us?"

"We went in on that time line, that same night, with an airboat andmade a recon in the hills back of Careba. Scared the fear of Safarinto a party of Caleras while we were working at low altitude, by theway. We found the conveyer-head site: hundred-foot circle with all thegrass and loose dirt transposed off it and a pole pen, very unsanitarywhere about two-three hundred slaves would be kept at a time. Noindications of use in the last ten days. We did some pretty thoroughboomeranging on that spatial equivalent over a couple of thousand timelines and found thirty more of them. I believe the slavers have closedout the whole Esaron Sector operation, at least temporarily. "

That was what he'd been afraid of; he hoped they wouldn't do the samething on the Kholghoor Sector. 

"Let me have the designations of the time lines on which you foundconveyer heads, " he said. 

"Just a moment, Chief's Assistant; I'll photoprint them to you. Setfor reception?"

Vall opened a slide under the screen and saw that the photoprint filmwas in place, then closed it again, nodding. Skordran Kirv fed a sheetof paper into his screen cabinet and his arm moved forward out of thepicture. 

"On, sir, " he said. He and Vall counted ten seconds together, and thenSkordran Kirv said: "Through to you. " Vall pressed a lever under hisscreen, and a rectangle of microcopy print popped out. 

"That's about all I have, sir. Want me to keep my troops ready here, or shall I send them somewhere else?"

"Keep them ready, Kirv, " Vall told him. "You may need them beforelong. Call you later. "

He put the microcopy in an enlarger, and carried the enlarged printwith him to the conveyer room. There was something odd about the listof time line designations. They were expressed numerically, in FirstLevel notation; extremely short groups of symbols capable of exactexpression of almost inconceivably enormous numbers. Vall had only ageneral-education smattering of mathematics--enough to qualify him forthe chair of Higher Mathematics at any university on, say, the FourthLevel Europo-American Sector--and he could not identify thepeculiarity, but he could recognize that there existed some sort ofpattern. Shoving in the starting lever, he relaxed in one of thechairs, waiting for the transposition field to build up around him, and fell asleep before the mesh dome of the conveyer had vanished. Hewoke, the list of time line designations in his hand, when theconveyor rematerialized on Home Time Line. Putting it in his pocket, he hurried to an antigrav shaft and floated up to the floor on whichTortha Karf's office was. 

 * * * * *

Tortha Karf was asleep in his chair; Dalla was eating a dinner thathad been brought in to her--something better than the sandwich and mugof coffee Vall had mentioned to Thalvan Dras. Several of the bureauchiefs who had been there when he had gone out had left, and thepsychist who had taken charge of the prisoner was there. 

"I think he's coming out of the drug, now, " he reported. "Stillasleep, though. We want him to waken naturally before we start on him. They'll call me as soon as he shows signs of stirring. "

"The Opposition's claiming, now, that we drugged and hypnotizedSalgath into making that visiscreen confession, " Dalla said. "Can youthink of any way you could do that without making the subjectincapable of lying?"

"Pseudo-memories, " the psychist said. "It would take about three timesas long as the time between Salgath Trod's departure from hisapartment and the time of the telecast, though--"

"You know much higher math?" Vall asked the psychist. 

"Well, enough to handle my job. Neuron-synapse inter-relations, memory-and-association patterns, that kind of thing, all have to beexpressed mathematically. "

Vall nodded and handed him the time-line designation list. 

"See any kind of a pattern there?" he asked. 

The psychist looked at the paper and blanked his face as he drew onhypnotically-acquired information. 

"Yes. I'd say that all the numbers are related in some kind of aseries to some other number. Simplified down to kindergarten level, say the difference between A and B is, maybe, one-decillionth of thedifference between X and A, and the difference between B and C isone-decillionth of the difference between X and B, and so on--"

A voice came out of one of the communication boxes:

"Dr. Nentrov; the patient's out of the drug, and he's beginning tostir about. "

"That's it, " the psychist said. "I have to run. " He handed the sheetback to Vall, took a last drink from his coffee cup, and bolted out ofthe room. 

Dalla picked up the sheet of paper and looked at it. Vall told herwhat it was. 

"If those time lines are in regular series, they relate to the baseline of operations, " she said. "Maybe you can have that worked out. Ican see how it would be; a stated interval between the Esaron Sectorlines, to simplify transposition control settings. "

"That was what I was thinking. It's not quite as simple as Dr. Nentrovexpressed it, but that could be the general idea. We might be able towork out the location of the base line from that. There seems to be abreak in the number sequence in here; that would be the time lineSkordran Kirv found those slaves on. " He reached for the pipe he hadleft on the desk when he had gone to Police Terminal and began fillingit. 

A little later, a buzzer sounded and a light came on on one of thecommunication boxes. He flipped the switch and said, "Verkan Vallhere. " Sothran Barth's voice came cut of the box. 

"They've just brought in Salgath Trod's servants. Picked them up asthey came out of the house conveyer at the apartment building. I don'tbelieve they know what's happened. "

Vall flipped a switch and twiddled a dial; a viewscreen lit up, showing the landing stage. The police car had just landed: onedetective had gotten out, and was helping the girl, Zinganna, who hadbeen Salgath Trod's housekeeper and mistress, to descend. She wasreally beautiful. Vall thought: rather tall, slender, with dark eyesand a creamy light-brown skin. She wore a black cloak, and, under it, a black and silver evening gown. A single jewel twinkled in her blackhair. She could have very easily passed for a woman of his own race. 

The housemaid and the butler were a couple of entirely differentarticles. Both were about four or five generations from Fourth LevelPrimitive savagery. The maid, in garishly cheap finery, was big-bonedand heavy-bodied, with red-brown hair; she looked like a member of oneof the northern European reindeer-herding peoples who had barelymanaged to progress as far as the bow and arrow. The butler wasprobably a mixture of half a dozen primitive races; he was wearing oneof his late master's evening suits, a bright mellow-pink, which wasdistinctly unflattering to his complexion. 

The sound-pickup was too far away to give him what they were saying, but the butler and maid were waving their arms and protestingvehemently. One of the detectives took the woman by the arm; shejerked it loose and aimed a backhand slap at him. He blocked it on hisforearm. Immediately, the girl in black turned and said something toher, and she subsided. Vall said, into the box:

"Barth, have the girl in the black cloak brought down to Number FourInterview Room. Put the other two in separate detention cubicles;we'll talk to them later. " He broke the connection and got to hisfeet. "Come on, Dalla. I want you to help me with the girl. "

"Just try and stop me, " Dalla told him. "Any interviews you have withthat little item, I want to sit in on. "

 * * * * *

The Proletarian girl, still guarded by a detective, had already beenplaced in the interview room. The detective nodded to Vall, tried tosuppress a grin when he saw Dalla behind him, and went out. Vall sawhis wife and the prisoner seated, and produced his cigarette case, handing it around. 

"You're Zinganna; you're of the household of Councilman Salgath Trod, aren't you?" he asked. 

"Housekeeper and hostess, " the girl replied. "I am also his mistress. "

Vall nodded, smiling. "Which confirms my long-standing respect forCouncilman Salgath's exquisite taste. "

"Why, thank you, " she said. "But I doubt if I was brought here toreceive compliments. Or was I?"

"No, I'm afraid not. Have you heard the newscasts of the past fewhours concerning Councilman Salgath?"

She straightened in her seat, looking at him seriously. 

"No. I and Nindrandigro and Calilla spent the evening on ServSecOne-Six-Five. Councilman Salgath told me that he had some business andwanted them out of the apartment, and wanted me to keep an eye onthem. We didn't hear any news at all. " She hesitated. "Has anything. .. Serious . .. Happened?"

Vall studied her for a moment, then glanced at Dalla. There existedbetween himself and his wife a sort of vague, semitelepathic, rapport;they had never been able to transmit definite and exact thoughts, butthey could clearly prehend one another's feelings and emotions. He wasconscious, now, of Dalla's sympathy for the Proletarian girl. 

"Zinganna, I'm going to tell you something that is being kept from thepublic, " he said. "By doing so, I will make it necessary for us todetain you, at least for a few days. I hope you will forgive me, but Ithink you would forgive me less if I didn't tell you. "

"Something's happened to him, " she said, her eyes widening and herbody tensing. 

"Yes, Zinganna. At about 2010, this evening, " he said, "CouncilmanSalgath was murdered. "

"Oh!" She leaned back in the chair, closing her eyes. "He's dead?"Then, again, statement instead of question: "He's dead!"

For a long moment, she lay back in the chair, as though trying toreorient her mind to the fact of Salgath Trod's death, while Vall andDalla sat watching her. Then she stirred, opened her eyes, looked atthe cigarette in her fingers as though she had never seen it before, and leaned forward to stuff it into an ash receiver. 

"Who did it?" she asked, the Stone Age savage who had been herancestor not ten generations ago peeping out of her eyes. 

"The men who actually used the needlers are dead, " Vall told her. "Ikilled a couple of them myself. We still have to find the men whoplanned it. I'd hoped you'd want to help us do that, Zinganna. "

He side-glanced to Dalla again; she nodded. The relationship betweenZinganna and Salgath Trod hadn't been purely business with her; therehad been some real affection. He told her what had happened, and whenhe reached the point at which Salgath Trod had called Tortha Karf toconfess complicity in the slave trade, her lips tightened and shenodded. 

"I was afraid it was something like that, " she said. "For the last fewdays, well, ever since the news about the slave trade got out, he'sbeen worried about something. I've always thought somebody had somekind of a hold over him. Different times in the past, he's done thingsso far against his own political best interests that I've had tobelieve he was being forced into them. Well, this time they tried toforce him too far. What then?"

Vall continued the story. "So we're keeping this hushed up, for awhile. The way we're letting it out, Salgath Trod is still alive, onPolice Terminal, talking under narco-hypnosis. "

She smiled savagely. "And they'll get frightened, and frightened mendo foolish things, " she finished. She hadn't been a politician'smistress for nothing. "What can I do to help?"

"Tell us everything you can, " he said. "Maybe we can be able to takesuch actions as we would have taken if Salgath Trod had lived to talkto us. "

"Yes, of course. " She got another cigarette from the case Vall hadlaid on the table. "I think, though, that you'd better give me anarco-hypnosis. You want to be able to depend on what I'm going totell you, and I want to be able to remember things exactly. "

Vall nodded approvingly and turned to Dalla. 

"Can you handle this, yourself?" he asked. "There's an audio-visualrecorder on now; here's everything you need. " He opened the drawers inthe table to show her the narco-hypnotic equipment. "And the phone hasa whisper mouthpiece; you can call out without worrying about yourmessage getting into Zinganna's subconscious. Well, I'll see you whenyou're through; you bring Zinganna to Police Terminal; I'll probablybe there. "

He went out, closing the door behind him, and went down the hall, meeting the officer who had taken charge of the butler and housemaid. 

"We're having trouble with them, sir, " he said. "Hostile. Yellingabout their rights, and demanding to see a representative ofProletarian Protective League. "

Vall mentioned the Proletarian Protective League with unflatteringvulgarity. 

"If they don't coöperate, drag them out and inject them and questionthem anyhow, " he said. 

The detective-lieutenant looked worried. "We've been taking a prettyhigh hand with them as it is, " he protested. "It's safer to kill aCitizen than bloody a Prole's nose; they have all sorts of laws toprotect them. "

"There are all sorts of laws to protect the Paratime Secret, " Vallreplied. "And I think there are one or two laws against murderingmembers of the Executive Council. In case P. P. L. Makes any trouble, they aren't here; they have faithfully joined their beloved master inhis refuge on PolTerm. But one or both of them work for theOrganization. "

"You're sure of that?"

"The Organization is too thorough not to have had a spy in Salgath'shousehold. It wasn't Zinganna, because she's volunteered to talk to usunder narco-hyp. So who does that leave?"

"Well, that's different; that makes them suspects. " The lieutenantseemed relieved. "We'll pump that pair out right away. "

When he got back to Tortha Karf's office, the Chief was awake, anddoodling on his notepad with his multicolor pen. Vall looked at thepad and winced; the Chief was doodling bugs again--red ants with blacklegs, and blue-and-green beetles. Then he saw that the psychist, Nentrov Dard, was drinking straight 150-proof palm-rum. 

"Well, tell me the worst, " he said. 

"Our boy's memory-obliterated, " Nentrov Dard said, draining his glassand filling it again. "And he's plastered with pseudo-memories a footthick. It'll be five or six ten-days before we can get all that stuffpeeled off and get him unblocked. I put him to sleep and had himtransposed to Police Terminal. I'm going there, myself, tomorrowmorning, after I've had some sleep, and get to work on him. If you'rehoping to get anything useful out of him in time to head off thisCouncil crisis that's building up, just forget it. "

"And that leaves us right back with our old friends, the WizardTraders, " Tortha Karf added. "And if they've decided to suspendactivities on the Kholghoor Sector, too--" He began drawing a big blueand black spider in the middle of the pad. 

Nentrov Dard crushed out his cigar, drank his rum, and got to hisfeet. 

"Well, good night, Chief; Vall. If you decide to wake me up before1000, send somebody you want to get rid of in a hurry. " He walkedaround the deck and out the side door. 

"I hope they don't, " Vall said to Tortha Karf. "Really, though, Idoubt if they do. This is their chance to pick up a lot of slavescheaply; the Croutha are too busy to bother haggling. I'm goingthrough to PolTerm, now; when Dalla and Zinganna get through, tellthem to join me there. "

 * * * * *

On Police Terminal, he found Kostran Galth, the agent who had beenselected to impersonate Salgath Trod. After calling Zulthran Torv, themathematician in charge of the Computer Office and giving him theEsaron time-line designations and Nentrov Dard's ideas about them, hespent about an hour briefing Kostran Galth on the role he was to play. Finally, he undressed and went to bed on a couch in the rest roombehind the office. 

It was noon when he woke. After showering, shaving and dressinghastily, he went out to the desk for breakfast, which arrived while hewas putting a call through to Ranthar Jard, at Nharkan Equivalent. 

"Your idea paid off, Chief's Assistant, " the Kholghoor SecReg Subchieftold him. "The slaves gave us a lot of physical description data onthe estate, and told us about new fields that had been cleared, and adam this Lord Ghromdour was building to flood some new rice-paddies. We located a belt of about five parayears where these improvements hadbeen made: we started boomeranging the whole belt, time line by timeline. So far, we have ten or fifteen pictures of the main square atSohram showing Croutha with firearms, and pictures of Wizard Tradercamps and conveyer heads on the same time lines. Here, let me showyou; this is from an airboat over the forest outside the equivalent ofSohram. "

There was no jungle visible when the view changed; nothing butclusters of steel towers and platforms and buildings that markedconveyer heads, and a large rectangle of red-and-white antigrav-buoysmoored to warn air traffic out of the area being boomeranged. Thepickup seemed to be pointed downward from the bow of an airboatcircling at about ten thousand feet. 

"Balls ready to go, " a voice called, and then repeated a string oftime-line designations. "Estimated return, 1820, give or take fourminutes. "

"Varth, " Ranthar Jard said, evidently out of the boat's radio. "Yourtelecast is being beamed on Dhergabar Equivalent; Chief's AssistantVerkan is watching. When do you estimate your next return?"

"Any moment, now, sir; we're holding this drop till theyrematerialize. "

Vall watched unblinkingly, his fork poised halfway to his mouth. Suddenly, about a thousand feet below the eye of the pickup, there wasa series of blue flashes, and, an instant later, a blossoming ofred-and-white parachutes, ejected from the photo-reconnaissance ballsthat had returned from the Kholghoor Sector. 

"All right; drop away, " the boat captain called. There was a gush, from underneath, of eight-inch spheres, their conductor-mesh twinklinggolden-bright in the sunlight. They dropped in a tight cluster for athousand or so feet and then flashed and vanished. From the ground, six or eight aircars rose to meet the descending parachutes and catchthem. 

The screen went cubist for a moment, and then Ranthar Jard's swarthy, wide-jawed face looked out of it again. He took his pipe from hismouth. 

"We'll probably get a positive out of the batch you just saw comingin, " he said. "We get one out of about every two drops. "

"Message a list of the time-line designations you've gotten so far toZulthran Torv, at Computer Office here, " Vall said. "He's working onthe Esaron Sector dope; we think a pattern can be established. I'll beseeing you in about five hours; I'm rocketing out of here as soon as Iget a few more things cleared up here. "

Zulthran Torv, normally cautious to the degree of pessimism, wasjubilant when Vall called him. 

"We have something, Vall, " he said. "It is, roughly, what Dr. Nentrovsuggested--each of the intervals between the designations is a veryminute but very exact fraction of the difference between lesserdesignation and the base-line designation. "

"You have the base-line designation?" Vall demanded. 

"Oh, yes. That's what I was telling you. We worked that out from thedesignations you gave me. " He recited it. "All the designations yougave me are--"

Vall wasn't listening to him. He frowned in puzzlement. 

"That's not a Fifth Level designation, " he said. "That's First Level!"

"That's correct. First Level Abzar Sector. "

"Now why in blazes didn't anybody think of that before?" he marveled, and as he did, he knew the answer. Nobody ever thought of the Abzarsector. 

[Illustration:]

Twelve millennia ago, the world of the First Level had beenexhausted; having used up the resources of their home planet, Mars, ahundred thousand years before, the descendants of the population thathad migrated across space had repeated on the third planet thedevastation of the fourth. The ancestors of Verkan Vall's people haddiscovered the principle of paratime transposition and had begun toexploit an infinity of worlds on other lines of probability. Thepeople of the First Level Dwarma Sector, reduced by sheer starvationto a tiny handful, had abandoned their cities and renounced theirtechnologies and created for themselves a farm-and-village culturewithout progress or change or curiosity or struggle or ambition, and away of life in which every day was like every other day that had beenor that would come. 

The Abzar people had done neither. They had wasted their resources tothe last, fighting bitterly over the ultimate crumbs, with fissionbombs, and with muskets, and with swords, and with spears and clubs, and finally they had died out, leaving a planet of almost uniformdesert dotted with vast empty cities which even twelve thousand yearshad hardly begun to obliterate. 

So nobody on the Paratime Sector went to the Abzar Sector. There wasnothing there--except a hiding-place. 

"Well, message that to Subchief Ranthar Jard, Kholghoor Sector atNharkan Equivalent, and to Subchief Vulthor, Esaron Sector, NovilanEquivalent, " Vall said. "And be sure to mark what you send Vulthor, 'Immediate attention Deputy Subchief Skordran. '"

That reminded him of something; as soon as he was through withZulthran, he got out an order in the name of Tortha Karf authorizingSkordran Kirv's promotion on a permanent basis and messaged it out. Something was going to have to be done with Vulthor Tharn, too. Apromotion of course--say Deputy Bureau Chief. Hypno-Mech Tape Libraryat Dhergabar Home Time Line; there Vulthor's passion for procedure andhis caution would be assets instead of liabilities. He called VlasthorArph, the Chief's Deputy assigned to him as adjutant. 

"I want more troops from ServSec and IndSec, " he said. "Go over theTO's and see what can be spared from where; don't strip any time line, but get a force of the order of about three divisions. And locate allthe big antigrav-equipped ship transposition docks on Commercial andPassenger Sectors, and a list of freighters and passenger ships thatcan be commandeered in a hurry. We think we've spotted the time linethe Organization's using as a base. As soon as we raid a couple ofplaces near Nharkan and Novilan Equivalents, we're going to move infor a planet-wide cleanup. "

"I get it, Chief's Assistant. I do everything I can to get ready for abig move, without letting anything leak out. After you strike thefirst blow, there won't be any security problem, and the lid will beoff. In the meantime, I make up a general plan, and alert all our ownpeople. Right?"

"Right. And for your information, the base isn't Fifth Level; it'sFirst Level Abzar. " He gave the designation. 

Vlasthor Arph chuckled. "Well, think of that! I'd even forgotten therewas an Abzar Sector. Shall I tell the reporters that?"

"Fangs of Fasif, no!" Vall fairly howled. Then, curiously: "Whatreporters? How'd they get onto PolTerm?"

"About fifty or sixty news-service people Chief Tortha sent down here, this morning, with orders to prevent them from filing any stories fromhere but to let them cover the raids, when they come off. We wereinstructed to furnish them weapons and audio-visual equipment andvocowriters and anything else they needed, and--"

Vall grinned. "That was one I'd never thought of, " he admitted. "Theold fox is still the old fox. No, tell them nothing; we'll just takethem along and show them. Oh, and where are Dr. Hadron Dalla and thatgirl of Salgath Trod's?"

"They're sleeping, now. Rest Room Eighteen. "

 * * * * *

Dalla and Zinganna were asleep on a big mound of silk cushions in onecorner, their glossy black heads close together and Zinganna's brownarm around Dalla's white shoulder. Their faces were calmly beautifulin repose, and they smiled slightly, as though they were wanderingthrough a happy dream. For a little while, Vall stood looking at them, then he began whistling softly. On the third or fourth bar, Dallawoke and sat up, waking Zinganna, and blinked at him perplexedly. 

"What time is it?" she asked. 

"About 1245, " he told her. 

"Ohhh! We just got to sleep, " she said. "We're both bushed!"

"You had a hard time. Feel all right after your narco-hyp, Zinganna?"

"It wasn't so bad, and I had a nice sleep. And Dalla . .. Dr. Hadron, Imean--"

"Dalla, " Vall's wife corrected. "Remember what I told you?"

"Dalla, then, " Zinganna smiled. "Dalla gave me some hypno-treatment, too. I don't feel so badly about Trod, any more. "

"Well, look, Zinganna. We're going to have a man impersonateCouncilman Salgath on a telecast. The cosmeticians are making him overnow. Would you find it too painful to meet him, and talk to him?"

"No, I wouldn't mind. I can criticize the impersonation; remember, Iknew Trod very well. You know, I was his hostess, too. I met many ofthe people with whom he was associated, and they know me. Would thingslook more convincing if I appeared on the telecast with your man?"

"It certainly would; it would be a great help!" he told herenthusiastically. "Maybe you girls ought to get up, now. The telecastisn't till 1930, but there's a lot to be done getting ready. "

Dalla yawned. "What I get, trying to be a cop, " she said, then caughtthe other girl's hands and rose, pulling her up. "Come on, Zinna; wehave to get to work!"

 * * * * *

Vall rose from behind the reading-screen in Ranthar Jard's office, stretching his arms over his head. For almost an hour, he had sat therepushing buttons and twiddling selector and magnification-adjustmentknobs, looking at the pictures the Kholghoor-Nharkan cops had taken withauto-return balls dropped over the spatial equivalent of Sohram. One setof pictures, taken at two thousand feet, showed the central square ofthe city. The effects of the Croutha sack were plainly visible; so werethe captives herded together under guard like cattle. By increasingmagnification, he looked at groups of the barbarian conquerors, big menwith blond or reddish-brown hair, in loose shirts and baggy trousers andrough cowhide buskins. Many of them wore bowl-shaped helmets, some hadshirts of ring-mail, all of them carried long straight swords withcross-hilts, and about half of them had pistols thrust through theirbelts or muskets slung from their shoulders. 

The other set of pictures showed the Wizard Trader camps and conveyerheads. In each case, a wide oval had been burned out in the jungle, probably with heavy-duty heat guns. The camps were surrounded withstout wire-mesh fence: in each there were a number of metalprefab-huts, and an inner fenced slave-pen. A trail had been cut fromeach to a similarly cleared circle farther back in the forest, and inthe centers of one or two of these circles he saw the actual conveyerdomes. There was a great deal of activity in all of them, and hescrewed the magnification-adjustment to the limit to scrutinize eachhuman figure in turn. A few of the men, he was sure, were First LevelCitizens; more were either Proles or outtimers. Quite a few of themwere of a dark, heavy-featured, black-bearded type. 

"Some of these fellows look like Second Level Khiftans, " he said. "Rush an individual picture of each one, maximum magnificationconsistent with clarity, to Dhergabar Equivalent to be transposed toHome Time Line. You get all the dope from Zulthran Torv?"

"Yes; Abzar Sector, " Ranthar Jard said. "I'd never have thought ofthat. Wonder why they used that series system, though. I'd have triedto spot my operations as completely at random as possible. "

"Only thing they could have done, " Vall said. "When we get hold of oneof their conveyers, we're going to find the control panel's just amess of arbitrary symbols, and there'll be something like acomputer-machine built into the control cabinet, to select the righttime line whenever a dial's set or a button pushed, and the only waythat could be done would be by establishing some kind of a numericalseries. And we were trustingly expecting to locate their base from oneof their conveyers! Why, if we give all those people in the picturesnarco-hyps, we won't learn the base-line designation; none of themwill know it. They just go where the conveyers take them. "

"Well, we're all set now, " Ranthar Jard said. "I have a plan of attackworked out; subject to your approval, I'm ready to start implementingit now. " He glanced at his watch. "The Salgath telecast is over, onHome Time Line, and in a little while, a transcript will be on thistime line. Want to watch it here, sir?"

 * * * * *

The telecast screen in the living room of Tortha Karf's town apartmentwas still on; in it, a girl with bright red hair danced slowly to softmusic against a background of shifting color. The four men who sat ina semicircle facing it sipped their drinks and watched idly. 

"Ought to be getting some sort of public reaction soon, " Tortha Karfsaid, glancing at his watch. 

"Well, I'll have to admit, it was done convincingly, " Zostha Olv, theChief Interoffice Coördinator, admitted grudgingly. "I'd have believedit, if I hadn't known the real facts. "

"Shooting it against the background of those wide windows was smart, "Lovranth Rolk said. "Every schoolchild would recognize that view ofthe rocketport as being on Police Terminal. And including that girlZinganna; that was a real masterpiece!"

"I've met her, a few times, " Elbraz Vark, the Political LiaisonAssistant, said. "Isn't she lovely!"

"Good actress, too, " Tortha Karf said. "It's not easy to impersonateyourself. "

"Well, Kostran Galth did a fine job of acting, too, " Lovranth Rolksaid. "That was done to perfection--the distinguished politician, supported by his loyal mistress, bravely facing the disgraceful end ofhis public career. "

"You know, I believe I could get that girl a booking with one of thebig theatrical companies. Now that Salgath's dead, she'll needsomebody to look after her. "

"What sharp, furry ears you have, Mr. Elbraz!" Zostha Olv grunted. 

The music stopped as though cut off with a knife, and the slim girlwith the red hair vanished in a shatter of many colors. When thescreen cleared, one of the announcers was looking out of it. 

"We interrupt the program for an important newscast of a sensationaldevelopment in the Salgath affair, " he said. "Your next speaker willbe Yandar Yadd--"

"I thought you'd managed to get that blabbermouth transposed toPolTerm, " Zostha said. 

"He wouldn't go. " Tortha Karf replied. "Said it was just a trick toget him off Home Time Line during the Council crisis. "

Yandar Yadd had appeared on the screen as the pickup swung about. 

". .. Recording ostensibly made by Councilman Salgath on PoliceTerminal Time Line, and telecast on Home Time Line an hour ago. Well, I don't know who he was, but I now have positive proof that hedefinitely was not Salgath Trod!"

"We're sunk!" Zostha Olv grunted. "He'd never make a statement likethat unless he could prove it. "

". .. Something suspicious about the whole thing, from the beginning, "the newsman was saying. "So I checked. If you recall, the actorimpersonating Salgath gestured rather freely with his hands, inimitation of a well-known mannerism of the real Salgath Trod; at onepoint, the ball of his right thumb was presented directly to thepickup. Here's a still of that scene. "

He stepped aside, revealing a viewscreen behind him; when he pressed abutton, the screen lighted; on it was a stationary picture of KostranGalth as Salgath Trod, his right hand raised in front of him. 

"Now watch this. I'm going to step up the magnification, slowly, sothat you can be sure there's no substitution. Camera a little closer, Trath!"

The screen in the background seemed to advance, until it filled theentire screen. Yandar Yadd was still talking, out of the picture; ametal-tipped pointer came into the picture, touching the right thumb, which grew larger and larger until it was the only thing visible. 

"Now here, " Yandar Yadd's voice continued. "Any of you who arefamiliar with the ancient science of dactyloscopy will recognize thisthumb as having the ridge-pattern known as a 'twin loop. ' Even withthe high degree of magnification possible with the microgrid screen, we can't bring out the individual ridges, but the pattern isunmistakable. I ask you to memorize that image, while I show youanother right thumb print, this time a certified photo-copy of thethumb print of the real Salgath Trod. " The magnification was reduced alittle, a card was moved into the picture, and it was stepped upagain. "See, this thumb print is of the type known as a 'tented arch. 'Observe the difference. "

"That does it!" Zostha Olv cried. "Karf, for the first and last time, let me remind you that I opposed this lunacy from the beginning. Now, what are we going to do next?"

"I suggest that we get to Headquarters as soon as we can, " Tortha Karfsaid. "If we wait too long, we may not be able to get in. "

Yandar Yadd was back on the screen, denouncing Tortha Karfpassionately. Tortha went over and snapped it off. 

"I suggest we transpose to PolTerm, " Lovranth Rolk said. "It won't beso easy for them to serve a summons on us there. "

"You can go to PolTerm if you want to, " Tortha Karf retorted. "I'mgoing to stay here and fight back, and if they try to serve me with asummons, they'd better send a robot for a process server. "

"Fight back!" Zostha Olv echoed. "You can't fight the Council and thewhole Management! They'll tear you into inch bits!"

"I can hold them off till Vall's able to raid those Abzar Sectorbases, " Tortha Karf said. He thought for a moment. "Maybe this is allfor the best, after all. If it distracts the Organization'sattention--"

 * * * * *

"I wish we could have made a boomerang-ball reconnaissance, " RantharJard was saying, watching one of the viewscreens, in which a film, taken from an airboat transposed to an adjoining Abzar sector timeline, was being shown. The boat had circled over the Ganges, a meretrickle between wide, deeply cut banks, and was crossing a gulliedplain, sparsely grown with thornbush. "The base ought to be aboutthere, but we have no idea what sort of changes this gang has made. "

"Well, we couldn't: we didn't dare take the chance of it beingspotted. This has to be a complete surprise. It'll be about like theother place, the one the slaves described. There won't be anypermanent buildings. This operation only started a few months ago, with the Croutha invasion; it may go on for four or five months, tillthe Croutha have all their surplus captives sold off. That country, "he added, gesturing at the screen, "will be flooded out when the rainscome. See how it's suffered from flood-erosion. There won't be a thingthere that can't be knocked down and transposed out in a day or so. "

"I wish you'd let me go along, " Ranthar Jard worried. 

"We can't do that, either, " Vall said. "Somebody's got to be in chargehere, and you know your own people better than I do. Beside, thiswon't be the last operation like this. Next time, I'll have to stay onPolice Terminal and command from a desk; I want first-hand experiencewith the outtime end of the job, and this is the only way I can getit. "

He watched the four police-girls who were working at the big terrainboard showing the area of the Police Terminal time line around them. They had covered the miniature buildings and platforms and towers witha fine mesh, at a scale-equivalent of fifty feet; each intersectionmarked the location of a three-foot conveyer ball, loaded with asleep-gas bomb and rigged with an automatic detonator which wouldexplode it and release the gas as soon as it rematerialized on theAbzar Sector. Higher, on stiff wires that raised them to whatrepresented three thousand feet, were the disks that stood for tenhundred-foot conveyers; they would carry squads of Paratime Police inaircars and thirty-foot air boats. There was a ring of bigtwo-hundred-foot conveyers a mile out; they would carry the armor andthe airborne infantry and the little two-man scooters of theair-cavalry, from the Service and Industrial Sectors. Directly overthe spatial equivalent of the Kholghoor Sector Wizard Traders'conveyers was the single disk of Verkan Vall's command conveyer, at arepresented five thousand feet, and in a half-mile circle around itwere the five news service conveyers. 

"Where's the ship-conveyer?" he asked. 

"Actually it's on antigrav about five miles north of here, " one of thegirls said. "Representationally, about where Subchief Ranthar'sstanding. "

Another girl added a few more bits to the network that represented thesleep-gas bombs and stepped back, taking off her earphones. 

"Everything's in place, now, Assistant Verkan, " she told him. 

"Good. I'm going aboard, now, " he said. "You can have it, Jard. "

He shook hands with Ranthar Jard, who moved to the switch which wouldactivate all the conveyers simultaneously, and accepted the goodwishes of the girls at the terrain board. Then he walked to themesh-covered dome of the hundred-foot conveyer, with the five newsservice conveyers surrounding it in as regular a circle as thebuildings and towers of the regular conveyer heads would permit. Themembers of his own detail, smoking and chatting outside, saw him andstarted moving inside; so did the news people. A public-addressspeaker began yelping, in a hundred voices all over the area, warningthose who were going with the conveyers to get aboard. He went inthrough a door, between two aircars, and on to the centralcontrol-desks, going up to a visiscreen over which somebody hadcrayoned "Novilan EQ. " It gave him a view, over the shoulder of a manin the uniform of a field agent third class, of the interior of aconveyer like his own. 

 * * * * *

"Hello, Assistant Verkan, " a voice came out of the speaker under thescreen, as the man moved his lips. "Deputy Skordran! Here's Chief'sAssistant Verkan, now!"

Skordran Kirv moved in front of the screen as the operator got up fromhis stool. 

"Hello, Vall; we're all set to move out as soon as you give the word, "he said. "We're all in position on antigrav. "

"That's smart work. We've just finished our gas-bomb net, " Vall said. "Going on antigrav now, " he added, as he felt the dome lift. "I hopeyou won't be too disappointed if you draw a blank on your end. "

"We realize that they've closed out the whole Esaron Sector, " SkordranKirv, eight thousand odd miles away, replied. "We're taking in acouple of ships; we're going to make a survey all up the coast. Thereare a lot of other sectors where slaves can be sold in this area. "

In the outside viewscreen, tuned to a slowly rotating pickup on thetop of a tower spatially equivalent with a room in a tall building onSecond Level Triplanetary Empire Sector, he could see his own conveyerrising vertically, with the news conveyers following, and the troopconveyers, several miles away, coming into position. Finally, theywere all placed; he reported the fact to Skordran Kirv and then pickedup a hand-phone. 

"Everybody ready for transposition?" he called. "On my count. Thirtyseconds . .. Twenty seconds . .. Fifteen seconds . .. Five seconds . .. Four seconds . .. Three seconds . .. Two seconds . .. One second, _out!_"

All the screens went gray. The inside of the dome passed into anotherspace-time continuum, even into another kind of space-time. Thetransposition would take half an hour; that seemed to be the timeneeded to build up and collapse the transposition field, regardless ofthe paratemporal distance covered. The dome above and around themvanished; the bare, tower-forested, building-dotted world of PoliceTerminal vanished, too, into the uniform green of the uninhabitedFifth Level. A planet could take pretty good care of itself, hethought, if people would only leave it alone. Then he began to see thefields and villages of Fourth Level. Cities appeared and vanished, growing higher and vaster as they went across the more civilized ThirdLevel. One was under air attack--there was almost never a paratemporaltransposition which did not run through some scene of battle. 

He unbuckled his belt and took off his boots and tunic; all aroundhim, the others were doing the same. Sleep-gas didn't have to bebreathed; it could enter the nervous system by any orifice or lesion, even a pore or a scratch. A spacesuit was the only protection. One ofthe detectives helped him on with his metal and plastic armor; beforesealing his gauntlets, he reciprocated the assistance, then checkedthe needler and blaster and the long batonlike ultrasonic paralyzer onhis belt and made sure that the radio and sound-phones in his helmetwere working. He hoped that the frantic efforts to gather severalthousand spacesuits onto Police Terminal from the Industrial andCommercial and Interplanetary Sectors hadn't started rumors which hadgotten to the ears of some of the Organization's ubiquitous agents. 

 * * * * *

The country below was already turning to the parched browns andyellows of the Abzar Sector. There was not another of the conveyers insight, but electronic and mechanical lag in the individual controlsand even the distance-difference between them and the central radiocontrol would have prevented them from going into transposition at thesame fractional microsecond. The recon-details began piling into theircars. Then the red light overhead winked to green, and the domeflickered and solidified into cold, inert metal. The screens lightedup again, and Vall could see Skordran Kirv, across Asia and thePacific, getting into his helmet. A dot of light in the center of theunderview screen widened as the mesh under the conveyer irised openaround the pickup. 

Below, the Organization base--big rectangles of fenced slave pens, with metal barracks inside; the huge circle of the Kholghoor Sectorconveyer-head building, and a smaller structure that must houseconveyers to other Abzar Sector time lines; the work-shops and livingquarters and hangars and warehouses and docks--was wreathed inwhite-green mist. The ring of conveyers at three thousand feet wereopening and spewing out aircars and airboats, farther away, thegreater ring of heavy conveyers were unloading armored and shieldedcombat-craft. An aircar which must have been above the reach of thegas was streaking away toward the west, with three police cars afterit. As he watched, the air around it fairly sizzled blue with the raysof neutron disruption blasters, and then it blew apart. The threepolice cars turned and came back more slowly. The three-thousand-tonpassenger ship which had been hastily fitted with armament wascircling about; the great dock conveyer which had brought it was gone, transposed back to Police Terminal to pick up another ship. 

He recorded a message announcing the arrival of the task-force, pulledout the tape and sealed it in a capsule, and put the capsule in a meshmessage ball, attaching it to a couple of wires and flipping a switch. The ball flashed and vanished, leaving the wires cleanly sheared off. When it got back to Police Terminal, half an hour later, it wouldrematerialize, eject a parachute, and turn on a whistle to callattention to itself. Then he sealed on his helmet, climbed into anaircar, and turned on his helmet-radio to speak to the driver. The carlifted a few inches, floated out an open port, and dived downward. 

 * * * * *

[Illustration:]

He landed at the big conveyer-head building. There were spaces forfifty conveyers around it, and all but eight of them were in place. One must have arrived since the gas bombs burst; it was crammed withsenseless Kharanda slaves. A couple of Paratime Police officers weretowing a tank of sleep-gas around on an antigrav-lifter, maintainingthe proper concentration in case any more came in. At the smallerconveyer building, there were no conveyers, only a number of red-linedfifty-foot circles around a central two-hundred-foot circle. TheOrganization personnel there had been dragged outside, and a group ofparacops were sealing it up, installing robot watchmen, and preparingto flood it with gas. At the slave pens, a string of two-hundred-footconveyers, having unloaded soldiers and fighting-gear, were coming into take on unconscious slaves for transposition to Police Terminal. Aircars and airboats were bringing in gassed slavers; they were beingshackled and dumped into the slave barracks; as soon as the gascleared and they could be brought back to consciousness, they would benarco-hypnotized and questioned. 

He had finished a tour of the warehouses, looking at the kegs ofgunpowder and the casks of brandy, the piles of pig lead, the stacksof cases containing muskets. These must have all come from somelow-order handcraft time line. Then there were swords and hatchetsand knives that had been made on Industrial Sector--the Organizationmust be getting them through some legitimate trading company--andmirrors and perfumes and synthetic fiber textiles and cheap jewelry, of similar provenance. It looked as though this stuff had been broughtin by ship from somewhere else on this time line; the warehouses weretoo far from the conveyers and right beside the ship dock--

There was a tremendous explosion somewhere. Vall and the men with himran outside, looking about, the sound-phones of their helmets givingthem no idea of the source of the sound. One of the policemen pointed, and Vall's eyes followed his arm. The ship that had been transposed inin the big conveyer was falling, blown in half; as he looked, bothsections hit the ground several miles away. A strange ship, afreighter, was coming in fast, and as he watched, a blue spark winkedfrom her bow as a heavy-duty blaster was activated. There was anotherexplosion, overhead; they all ran for shelter as Vall'scommand-conveyer disintegrated into falling scrap-metal. At once, allthe other conveyers which were on antigrav began flashing andvanishing. That was the right, the only, thing to do, he knew. But itwas leaving him and his men isolated and under attack. 

 * * * * *

"So that was it, " Dalgroth Sorn, the Paratime Commissioner forSecurity said, relieved when Tortha Karf had finished. 

"Yes, and I'll repeat it under narco-hyp, too, " Tortha Karf added. 

"Oh, don't talk that way, Karf, " Dalgroth Sorn scolded. He was atleast a century Tortha Karf's senior; he had the face of an elderlyand sore-toothed lion. "You wanted to keep this prisoner under wrapstill you could mind-pump him, and you wanted the Organization to thinkSalgath was alive and talking. I approve both. But--"

He gestured to the viewscreen across the room, tuned to a pickup backof the Speaker's chair in the Council Chamber. Tortha Karf turned aknob to bring the sound volume up. 

"Well. I'm raising this point, " a member from the Management seats inthe center was saying, "because these earlier charges of illegalarrest and illegal detention are part and parcel with the chargesgrowing out of the telecast last evening. "

"Well, that telecast was a fake; that's been established, " somebody onthe left heckled. 

"Councilman Salgath's confession on the evening of One-Six-Two Daywasn't a fake, the Management supporter, Nanthav Skov, retorted. 

"Well, then why was it necessary to fake the second one?"

A light began winking on the big panel in front of the Speaker, AstharVarn. 

"I recognize Councilman Hasthor Flan, " Asthar said. 

"I believe I can construct a theory that will explain that, " HasthorFlan said. "I suggest that when the Paratime Police were questioningCouncilman Salgath under narco-hypnosis, he made statementsincriminating either the Paratime Police as a whole or some member ofthe Paratime Police whom Tortha Karf had to protect--say somebody likeAssistant Verkan. So they just killed him, and made up thisimpostor--"

Tortha Karf began, alphabetically, to blaspheme every god he had everheard of. He had only gotten as far as a Fourth Level deity namedAllah when a red light began flashing in front of Asthar Varn, and thevoice of a page-robot, amplified, roared:

"Point of special urgency! Point of special urgency! It has beenrequested that the news telecast screen be activated at once, withplayback to 1107. An important bulletin has just come in fromNagorabar, Home Time Line, on the Indian subcontinent--"

"You can stop swearing, now, Karf, " Dalgroth Sorn grinned. "I thinkthis is it. "

 * * * * *

Kostran Galth sat on the edge of the couch, with one arm aroundZinganna's waist; on the other side of him, Hadron Dalla lay at fulllength, her elbows propped and her chin in her hands. The screen infront of them showed a fading sunset, although it was only a littlepast noon at Dhergabar Equivalent. A dark ship was coming slowly inagainst the red sky; in the center of a wire-fenced compound ahundred-foot conveyer hung on antigrav twenty feet from the ground, and beyond, a long metal prefab-shed was spilling light from opendoors and windows. 

"That crowd that was just taken in won't be finished for a couple ofhours, " a voice was saying. "I don't know how much they'll be able totell; the psychists say they're all telling about the same stories. What those stories are, of course, I'm not able to repeat. After thetrouble caused by a certain news commentator who shall benameless--he's not connected with this news service, I'm happy tosay--we're all leaning over backward to keep from breaking ParatimePolice security. 

"One thing; shortly after the arrival of the second ship from PoliceTerminal--and believe me, that ship came in just in the nick oftime!--the dead Abzar city which the criminals were using as theirmain base for this time line, and from which they launched the airattack against us, was located, and now word has come in that it isentirely in the hands of the Paratime Police. Personally, I doubt if agreat deal of information has been gotten from any prisoners takenthere. The lengths to which this Organization went to keep their ownpeople in ignorance is simply unbelievable. "

A man appeared for a moment in the lighted doorway of the shed, thenstepped outside. 

"Look!" Dalla cried. "There's Vall!"

"There's Assistant Verkan, now, " the commentator agreed. "Chief'sAssistant, would you mind saying a few words, here? I know you're abusy man, sir, but you are also the public hero of Home Time Line, andeverybody will be glad if you say something to them--"

 * * * * *

Tortha Karf sealed the door of the apartment behind them, thenactivated one of the robot servants and sent it gliding out of theroom for drinks. Verkan Vall took off his belt and holster and laidthem aside, then dropped into a deep chair with a sigh of relief. Dalla advanced to the middle of the room and stood looking about insurprised delight. 

"Didn't expect this, from the mess outside?" Vall asked. "You know, you really are on the paracops, now. Nobody off the Force knows aboutthis hideout of the Chief's. "

"You'd better find a place like this, too, " Tortha Karf advised. "Fromnow on, you'll have about as much privacy at that apartment inTurquoise Towers as you'd enjoy on the stage of Dhergabar OperaHouse. "

"Just what is my new position?" Vall asked, hunting his cigarette caseout of his tunic. "Duplicate Chief of Paratime Police?"

 * * * * *

The robot came back with three tall glasses and a refrigerateddecanter on its top. It stopped in front of Tortha Karf and slewedaround on its treads; he filled a glass and sent it to the chair whereDalla had seated herself; when she got a drink, she sent it to Vall. Vall sent if back to Tortha Karf, who turned it off. 

"No; you have the modifier in the wrong place. You're Chief ofDuplicate Paratime Police. You take the setup you have now, and expandit; continue the present lines of investigation, and be ready toexploit anything new that comes up. You won't bother with any of thisroutine flying-saucer-scare stuff; just handle the Organizationbusiness. That'll keep you busy for a long time, I'm afraid. "

"I notice you slammed down on the first Council member who beganshouting about how you'd wiped out the Great Paratemporal Crime-Ring, "Vall said. 

"Yes. It isn't wiped out, and it won't be wiped out for a long time. Ishall be unspeakably delighted if, when I turn my job over to you, youhave it wiped out. And even then, there'll be a loose end to pick upevery now and then till you retire. "

"We have Council and the Management with us, now, " Vall said. "Thiswas the first secret session of Executive Council in over two thousandyears. And I thought I'd drop dead when they passed that motion tosubmit themselves to narco-hypnosis. "

"A few Councilmen are going to drop dead before they can benarco-hypped, " Dalla prophesied over the rim of her glass. 

"A few have already. I have a list of about a dozen of them who havehad fatal accidents or committed suicide, or just died or vanishedsince the news of your raid broke. Four of them I saw, in the screen, jump up and run out as soon as the news came in, on One-Six-Five Day. And a lot of other people; our friend Yandar Yadd's dropped out ofsight, for one. You heard what we got out of those servants of SalgathTrod's?"

"I didn't, " Dalla said. "What?"

"Both spies for the Organization. They reported to a woman namedFarilla, who ran a fortune-telling parlor in the Prole district. Heroccult powers didn't warn her before we sent a squad of plain-clothesmen for her. That was an entirely illegal arrest, by the way, but itnetted us a list of about three hundred prominent political, businessand social persons whose servants have been reporting to her. Shethought she was working for a telecast gossipist. "

"That's why we have a new butler, darling, " Vall interrupted. "Kandagro was reporting on us. "

"Who did she pass the reports on to?" Dalla asked. 

Tortha Karf beamed. "She thinks more like a cop every time I talk toher, " he told Vall. "You better appoint her your Special Assistant. Why, about 1800 every day, some Prole would come in, give therecognition sign, and get the day's accumulation. We only got one ofthem, a fourteen-year-old girl. We're having some trouble getting herdeconditioned to a point where she can be hypnotized into talking; bythe time we do, they'll have everything closed out, I suppose. What'sthe latest from Abzar Sector? I missed the last report in the rush toget to this Council session. "

"All stalled. We're still boomeranging the sector, but it's about fivebillion time-lines deep, and the pattern for the Kholghoor and EsaronSectors doesn't seem to apply. I think they have a lot of these Abzartime lines close together, and they get from one to another via someterminal on Fifth Level. "

Tortha Karf nodded. It was impossible to make a transposition of lessthan ten parayears--a hundred thousand time lines. It was impossiblethat the field could build and collapse that soon. 

"We also think that this Abzar time line was only used for theCroutha-Wizard Trader operation. Nothing we found there was more thana couple of months old; nothing since the last rainy season in India, for instance. Everything was cleaned out on Skordran Kirv's end. "

"Tell him to try the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio Valleys, " TorthaKarf said. "A lot of those slaves are sure to have been sold to SecondLevel Khiftan Sector. "

"Well, it looks as though our vacation's out the window for a longtime, " Dalla said resignedly. 

"Why don't you and Vall go to my farm, on Fifth Level Sicily, " TorthaKarf suggested. "I own the whole island, on that time line, and youcan always be reached in a hurry if anything comes up. "

"We could have as much fun there as on the Dwarma Sector, " Dallasaid. "Chief, could we take a couple of friends along?"

"Well, who?"

"Zinganna and Kostran Galth, " she replied. "They've gotten interestedin one another; they're talking about a tentative marriage. "

"It'll have to be mighty tentative, " Vall said. "Kostran Galth can'tmarry a Prole. "

"She won't be a Prole very long. I'm going to adopt her as my sister. "

Tortha Karf looked at her sharply. "You sure you know what you'redoing, Dalla?" he asked. 

"Of course I'm sure. I know that girl better than she knows herself. Inarco-hypped her, remember. Zinna's the kind of a sister I've alwayswished I'd had. "

"Well, that's all right then. But about this marriage. She was in lovewith Salgath Trod, " Tortha Karf said. "Now, she's identifying AgentKostran with him--"

"She was in love with the kind of man Salgath could have been if hehadn't gotten into this Organization filth, " Dalla replied. "Galth isthat kind of a man. They'll get along all right. "

"Well, she'll qualify on IQ and general psych rating for Citizenship. I'll say that. And she's the kind of girl I like to see my boys takeup with. Like you, Dalla. Yes, of course; take them along with you. Sicily's big enough that two couples won't get in each others' way. "

A phone-robot, its slender metal stem topped by a metal globe, slidinto the room on its ball-rollers, moving falteringly, like a blindman. It could sense Tortha Karf's electro-encephalic wave-patterns, but it was having trouble locating the source. They all satmotionless, waiting; finally it came over to Tortha Karf's chair andstopped. He unhooked the phone and held a lengthy whisperedconversation with somebody before replacing it. 

"Now, there, " he explained to Dalla. "That's a sample of why we haveto set up this duplicate organization. Revolution just broke out atFtanna, on Third Level Tsorshay Sector; a lot of our people, mostlytourists and students, are cut off from their conveyers by streetfighting. Going to be a pretty bloody business getting them out. " Hefinished his drink and got to his feet. "Sit still; I just have tomake a few screen-calls. Send the robot for something to eat, Vall. I'll be right back. "

THE END