The Project Gutenberg EBook of Time Crime, by H. Beam Piper

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Title: Time Crime

Author: H. Beam Piper

Release Date: May 5, 2007 [EBook #18151]
[This file was first posted on April 11, 2006]

Language: English

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                         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 this
time! Tracing one man in a population of millions is easy--compared
to 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 veranda
roof, his white cloak thrown back to display the scarlet lining. He
rubbed his palm reflectively on the checkered butt of his revolver and
watched 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. Only
one stone remained. "One more hundred to pay."

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

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

[Illustration:]

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

"Migratory workers," the guard captain said. "Humanitarian
considerations aside, I can think of a lot better ways of meeting the
labor problem on a fruit plantation than by buying slaves you need for
three months a year and have to feed and quarter and clothe and doctor
the whole twelve."

"Twenty hundreds of _obus_," the clerk who had been counting the money
said. "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 them
over and put them in an iron-bound chest, snapping the padlock. The
two guards who had been loitering at one side slung their rifles and
picked up the chest, carrying it into the plantation house. The slave
dealer and his companion arose, putting their money into a leather
bag; 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, with
carbines slung across their backs, approached; with them came another
man in a hooded white cloak, and two guards in blue jackets and red
caps, with bayoneted rifles. The man in white and his armed attendants
came toward the house; the six Calera slavers continued across the
yard to where their horses were picketed.

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

Urado Alatana, the labor foreman, came up onto the porch as the two
slavers 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 two
thousand _obus_--forty thousand Paratemporal Exchange Units--of the
Company's money without knowing what we're getting?" the other
parried. "They're all right--nice, clean, healthy-looking lot. I did
everything but take them apart and inspect the pieces while they were
being unshackled at the stockade. I'd like to know where this
Coru-hin-Whatshisname got them, though. They're not local stuff. Lot
darker, and they're jabbering among themselves in some lingo I never
heard before. A few are wearing some rags of clothing, and they have
odd-looking sandals. I noticed that most of them showed marks of
recent whipping. That may mean they're troublesome, or it may just
mean that these Caleras are a lot of sadistic brutes."

"Poor devils!" The man called Dosu Golan was evidently hoping that
he'd never catch himself talking about fellow humans like that. The
guard 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?" the
captain asked gently. "You'll not get used to it any sooner than now."

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

The labor foreman went into the house; the manager and the guard
captain went down the steps and set out across the yard. A big
slat-sided wagon, drawn by four horses, driven by an old slave in a
blue smock and a thing like a sunbonnet, rumbled past, loaded with
newly-picked oranges. Blue woodsmoke was beginning to rise from the
stoves at the open kitchen and a couple of slaves were noisily
chopping wood. Then they came to the stockade of close-set pointed
poles. A guard sergeant in a red-trimmed blue jacket, armed with a
revolver, met them with a salute which Kiro Soran returned: he
unfastened the gate and motioned four or five riflemen into positions
from which they could fire in between the poles in case the slaves
turned on their new owners.

There seemed little danger of that, though Kiro Soran kept his hand
close to the butt of his revolver. The slaves, an even hundred of
them, squatted under awnings out of the sun, or stood in line to drink
at the water-butt. They furtively watched the two men who had entered
among them, as though expecting blows or kicks; when none were
forthcoming, they relaxed slightly. As the labor foreman had said,
they were clean and looked healthy. They were all nearly naked; there
were 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-shaped
instead of oval, and differently shaped noses, and brown eyes instead
of black. I've seen people like that, somewhere, but--"

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

"These are not like the others: they wear fine garments, and walk
proudly. They look stern, but not cruel. They are the real masters
here; 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 Golan
shook his head, he continued: "That's Kharanda; it's a dialect spoken
by a people in the Ganges Valley, in India, on the Kholghoor Sector of
the 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. "And
another thing. Those lash-marks were made with some kind of an
electric whip. Not these rawhide quirts the Caleras use."

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

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

"Well, I know what I have to do." The captain raised his voice, using
the local language: "Sergeant! Run to the guardhouse, and tell
Sergeant Adarada to mount up twenty of his men and take off after
those Caleras who sold us these slaves. They're headed down the road
toward the river. Tell him to bring them all back, and especially
their chief, Coru-hin-Irigod, and him I want alive and able to answer
questions. And then get the white-cloak lord Urado Alatena, and come
back here."

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

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

"Now wait a moment, Kirv," Dosu Golan protested. "After all, I'm the
manager, 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. "You
know the terms under which I was hired by the Company. I'm still a
field agent of the Paratime Police, and I'm reporting back on duty as
soon as I can transpose to Police Terminal. Look; here are a hundred
men and women who have been shifted from one time-line, on one
paratemporal sector of probability, to another. Why, the world from
which these people came doesn't even exist in this space-time
continuum. There's only one way they could have gotten here, and
that's the way we did--in a Ghaldron-Hesthor paratemporal
transposition field. You can carry it on from there as far as you
like, but the only thing it adds up to is a case for the Paratime
Police. You had better include in your report mention that I've
reverted to police status; my Company pay ought to be stopped as of
now. And until somebody who outranks me is sent here, I'm in complete
charge. Paratime Transposition Code, Section XVII, Article 238."

The plantation manager nodded. Kiro Soran knew how he must feel; he
laid 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 looked
at the brown-skinned slaves, and lines of horror and loathing appeared
around his mouth. "To think that some of our own people would do a
thing like this! I hope you can catch the devils! Are you transposing
out, now?"

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

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

The labor foreman, known locally as Urado Alatena, entered the
stockade.

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

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

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

"Not his fault," the Paratime Police agent said. "I'm the one the
Company'll be sore at, but I'd rather have them down on me rather than
old Tortha Karf. Well, sit on the lid till I get back," he told both
of them. "We'll need some kind of a story for the locals. Let's
see--Explain to the guards, in the hearing of some of the more
talkative slaves, that these slaves are from the Asian mainland, that
they are of a people friendly to our people, and that they were
kidnaped by pirates, our enemies. That ought to explain everything
satisfactorily."

On his way back to the plantation house, he saw a clump of local
slaves staring curiously at the stockade, and noticed that the guards
had unslung their rifles and fixed their bayonets. None of them had
any idea, of course, of what had happened, but they all seemed to
know, by some sort of ESP, that something was seriously wrong. It was
going to get worse, too, when strangers began arriving, apparently
from nowhere, at the plantation.

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

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

"I thought the Dwarma Sector people were vegetarians," Jandar Jard,
the theatrical designer, said. "Most nonviolent peoples are, aren't
they?"

"Well, the Dwarma people haven't any specific taboo against taking
life," Bronnath Zara, the dark-eyed woman in the brightly colored
gown, told him. "They're just utterly noncombative, nonaggressive.
When I was on the Dwarma Sector, there was a horrible scandal at the
village where I was staying. It seems that a farmer and a meat butcher
fought over the price of a pig. They actually raised their voices and
shouted 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 and
Vall 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 Dwarma
songs by hypno-mech," Dalla said. "And Transtime Tours is fitting Vall
out 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 the
fine decorative work they do, they're the most incompetent practical
mechanics I've ever seen or heard of. You're going to travel from
village to village?"

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

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

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

"I can just see Vall mending pots, and Dalla playing that mandolin and
singing," 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 talk
to him about it till he gets ashamed, then they all forgive him and
have a feast. They're lovely people, so kind and gentle. But you'll
get awfully tired of them in about a month. They have absolutely no
respect for anybody's privacy. In fact, it seems slightly indecent to
them for anybody to want privacy."

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

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

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

[Illustration:]

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

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

"Vall's probably forgotten that he has a title," a girl across the
table, 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 been
cattishness.

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

       *       *       *       *       *

In the visiphone booth, Vall found a girl in a green blouse, with the
Paratime 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 Chief
wants 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 well
into middle age; close to his three hundredth year. His hair, a
uniform iron-gray, was beginning to thin in front, and he was
acquiring 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 Dalla
leaving?"

"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 to
Passenger Terminal Sixteen, and from there to the Dwarma Sector."

"Well, Vall, I hate to bother you like this," Tortha Karf said, "but I
wish 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 to
talk to you about it."

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

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

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

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

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

"... Reason I'm taking such an especially active interest in this
year's Arts Exhibitions; I've become disturbed at the extent to which
so many of our artists have been content to derive their motifs, even
their techniques, from outtime art." He was using his vocowriter,
rather than his conversational, voice. "I yield to no one in my
appreciation of outtime art--you all know how devotedly I collect
objects of art from all over paratime--but our own artists should
endeavor 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 you
come along."

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

"I'm dreadfully sorry, Dras," he addressed their host. "I just had a
call 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 a
wonderful luncheon--"

"Why, certainly, Vall. Brogoth, will you call--" He gave a slight
chuckle. "I'm so used to having Brogoth Zaln at my elbow that I'd
forgotten he wasn't here. Wait. I'll call one of the servants to have
a 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 nobleman
was shocked at such an obscene idea. "I will have a car ready for you
in 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 we
get back."

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

Vall crushed out his cigarette and said nothing. That hadn't been
true, and she knew it as well as he did. There had been many other
factors involved in the disintegration of their previous marriage,
most of them of her own contribution. But that had been twenty years
ago, 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 thinks
I'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 of
his, on Fifth Level Sicily? It's just that this job of ours has no
end; 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 of
him. Something in the cab's electronic brain gave a rapid series of
clicks as it shifted from the general Paratime Building beam to the
beam of the Paratime Police landing stage, then it said, "Thank you."
The building below seemed to rotate upward toward them as it settled
down. 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, and
floated downward; at the end of a hallway, below, Vall opened the door
of Tortha Karf's office and ushered her through ahead of him.

Tortha Karf, inside the semicircle of his desk, was speaking into a
recording 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--something
about prompter evaluation and transmission of reports and less
reliance on robot equipment. "Sign that up, my personal order, and see
it's transmitted to everybody down to and including Sector Regional
Subchief level," he finished, then hung up the phone and turned to
them.

"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 hands
on her lap.

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

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

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

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

"No possibility that this agent, Skordran Kirv, could have been
mistaken. He worked for a while on Kholghoor Sector, himself; knew the
language by hypno-mech and by two years' use," Tortha Karf was saying.
"So he ordered himself back on duty, had the slaves isolated and the
slave dealers arrested, and then transposed to Police Terminal to
report. The SecReg Subchief, old Vulthor Tharn, confirmed him in
charge at this Esaron Sector plantation, and assigned him a couple of
detectives 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 morning
generalized report-digest; very inconspicuous item, no special urgency
symbol or anything. Fortunately, one of the report editors spotted it
and 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 the
curiously withdrawn expression of a conscious memory recall. "Fifty
years ago; the time that gang kidnaped some girls from Second Level
Triplanetary Empire Sector and sold them into the harem of some Fourth
Level Indo-Turanian sultan."

"Yes. That was your first independent case, Vall. That was when I
began to think you'd really make a cop. One renegade First Level
citizen and four or five ServSec Prole hoodlums, with a stolen
fifty-foot conveyer. This looks like a rather more ambitious
operation." Dalla got one of her own cigarettes out and lit it. Vall
and Tortha Karf were talking cop talk about method of operation and
possible size of the gang involved, and why the slaves had been
shipped 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, that
outtimers 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, curiosity
began to get the better of her. She had spent a year and a half on the
Kholghoor Sector, investigating alleged psychic powers of the local
priests. There'd been nothing to it--the prophecies weren't
precognition, they were shrewd inferences, and the miracles weren't
psychokinesis, 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, turned
east, and hit the headwaters of the Ganges. Without punching a lot of
buttons to find out exactly, I'd say they're halfway to the delta
country by now. Leader seems to be a chieftain called Llamh Droogh the
Red. A lot of paratime trading companies are yelling for permits to
introduce firearms in the Kholghoor Sector to protect their holdings
there."

She nodded. The Fourth Level Kholghoor Sector belonged to what was
known as Indus-Ganges-Irriwady Basic Sector-Grouping--probability of
civilization having developed late on the Indian subcontinent, with
the rest of the world, including Europe, in Stone Age savagery or
early Bronze Age barbarism. The Kharandas, the people among whom she
had once done field-research work, had developed a pre-mechanical,
animal-power, handcraft, edge-weapon culture. She could imagine the
roads jammed with fugitives from the barbarian invaders, the conveyer
hidden 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 develop
into, and I want to know why Vulthor Tharn's been sitting on this ever
since Skordran Kirv reported it to him--"

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

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

"Closer twenty-four," Vall said. "I'd have to transpose to this
plantation, on the Esaron Sector. How about it, Dalla? Would you want
to 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 the
situation. This may be something very serious. If it's an isolated
incident, it can be handled in a routine manner, but I'm afraid it's
not. It has all the marks of a large-scale operation, and if this is a
matter of mass kidnapings from one sector and transpositions to
another, you can see what a threat this is to the Paratime Secret."

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

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

"We could do that, couldn't we, Vall?" she asked, angry at herself now
for giving in. "And if you want to question these slaves, I speak
Kharanda, and I know how they think. And I'm a qualified and licensed
narco-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, do
you know Acalan?" When she shook her head, he turned back to Tortha
Karf. "Look; it's about a four-hour rocket hop to Novilan Equivalent.
Say we have the hypno-mech machines installed in the rocket; Dalla and
I can take our language lessons on the way, and be ready to go to work
as 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 committed
herself and Vall. Come to think of it, she had never been on Police
Terminal Time Line; very few people, outside the Paratime Police, ever
had. And, she had always wanted to learn more about Vall's work, and
participate in it with him. And if she'd made him refuse, it would
have been something ugly between them all the time they would be on
the Dwarma Sector. But this way--

       *       *       *       *       *

The big circular conveyer room was crowded, as it had been every
minute of every day for the past ten thousand years. At the great
circular desk in the center, departing or returning police officers
were checking in or out with the flat-topped cylindrical robot
clerks, or talking to human attendants. Some were in the regulation
green uniform; others, like himself, were in civilian clothes; more
were in outtime costumes from all over paratime. Fringed robes and
cloth-of-gold sashes and conical caps from the Second Level Khiftan
Sector; Fourth Level Proto-Aryan mail and helmets; the short tunics
and kilts of Fourth Level Alexandrian-Roman Sector; the Zarkantha
loincloth and felt cap and daggers; there were priestly vestments
stiff with gold, and military uniforms; there were trousers and
jackboots and bare legs; blasters, and swords, and pistols, and bows
and quivers, and spears. And the place was loud with a babel of voices
and the clatter of teleprinters.

[Illustration:]

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

In theory, the Ghaldron-Hesthor paratemporal transposition field was
uninfluenced by material objects outside it. In practice, however,
such objects occasionally intruded, and sometimes they were alive and
hostile. The last time he had been in this conveyer room, he had seen
a quartet of returning officers emerge from a conveyer dome dragging
a dead lion by the tail. The sigma-ray needler, which he carried, was
the only weapon which could be used, under the circumstances. It had
no effect whatever on any material structure and could be used inside
an activated conveyer without deranging the conductor-mesh, as, say, a
bullet or the vibration of an ultrasonic paralyzer would do, and it
was instantly fatal to anything having a central nervous system. It
was a good weapon to use outtime for that reason, also; even on the
most civilized time-line, the most elaborate autopsy would reveal no
specific cause of death.

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

"Third Level; probability of abortive attempt to colonize this planet
from Mars about a hundred thousand years ago," he said. "A few
survivors--a shipload or so--were left to shift for themselves while
the parent civilization on Mars died out. They lost all vestiges of
their original Martian culture, even memory of their extraterrestrial
origin. About fifteen hundred to two thousand years ago, a reasonably
high electrochemical civilization developed and they began working
with nuclear energy and developed reaction-drive spaceships. But
they'd concentrated so on the inorganic sciences, and so far neglected
the bio-sciences, that when they launched their first ship for Venus
they 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 return
brought it back to Terra. Of course, nobody knew what it was, and
before the epidemic ended, it had almost depopulated this planet.
Since the survivors knew nothing about germs, they blamed it on the
anger of the gods--the old story of recourse to supernaturalism in the
absence of a known explanation--and a fanatically anti-scientific cult
got control. Of course, space travel was taboo; so was nuclear and
even electric power. For some reason, steam power and gunpowder
weren't offensive to the gods. They went back to a low-order
steam-power, black-powder, culture, and haven't gotten beyond that to
this day. The relatively civilized regions are on the east coast of
Asia and the west coast of North America; civilized race more or less
Caucasian. Political organization just barely above the tribal
level--thousands of petty kingdoms and republics and principalities
and feudal holdings and robbers' roosts. The principal industries are
brigandage, piracy, slave-raiding, cattle-rustling and intercommunal
warfare. They have a few ramshackle steam railways, and some
steamboats on the rivers. We sell them coal and manufactured goods,
mostly in exchange for foodstuffs and tobacco. Consolidated Outtime
Foodstuffs has the sector franchise. That's one of the companies
Thalvan Dras gets his money from."

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

Finally the conveyer dome around them shimmered into visibility and
materialized; when they emerged, there were policemen in green
uniforms who entered to search the dome with drawn needlers to make
sure they had picked up nothing dangerous on the way. The room outside
was similar to the one they had left on Home Time Line, even to the
shifting, noisy crowd in incongruously-mixed costumes.

       *       *       *       *       *

The rocketport was a ten minutes' trip by aircar from the conveyer
head; when they boarded the stubby-winged strato-rocket, Vall saw that
two of the passenger-seats had square metal cabinets bolted in place
behind them and blue plastic helmets on swinging arms mounted above
them.

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

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

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

On the landing stage of the Sector-Regional Headquarters at Novilan
Equivalent, four or five people were waiting for them. Vall recognized
the subchief, Vulthor Tharn, who introduced another man, in riding
boots and a white cloak, as Skordran Kirv. Vall clasped hands with him
warmly.

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

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

"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 conveyer
head set up about two hundred miles south of here, which will take you
straight through to the plantation."

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

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

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

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

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

"I confirmed Agent Skordran in charge of the local investigation, and
gave him two detectives and a psychist, sir. As soon as we could
furnish hypno-mech indoctrination in Kharanda to other psychists, I
sent them along. He now has four of them, and eight detectives. By
that time, we had a conveyer head right at this Consolidated Outtime
Foodstuffs plantation."

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

"Oh, I couldn't call on another SecReg for men without higher-echelon
authorization. Especially not from another Sector Organization, even
another Level Authority," Vulthor Tharn said. "Beside, it would have
taken 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?" he
asked.

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

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Wait till you hear the rest of it. On the Kholghoor Sector, this gang
is known as the Wizard Traders; we've been using that as a convenience
label. They pose as sorcerers--black robes and hood-masks covered with
luminous symbols, voice-amplifiers, cold-light auras, energy-weapons,
mechanical magic tricks, that sort of thing. They have all the Croutha
scared witless. Their procedure is to establish camps in the forest
near recently conquered Kharanda cities; then they appear to the
Croutha, impress them with their magical powers, and trade
manufactured 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 Croutha
invaders.

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

       *       *       *       *       *

The aircar lost speed and altitude; below, the countryside was dotted
with conveyer heads, each spatially coexistent with some outtime
police post or operation. There were a great many of them; the western
coast of North America was a center of civilization on many
paratemporal sectors, and while the conveyer heads of the commercial
and passenger companies were scattered over hundreds of Fifth Level
time lines, those of the Paratime Police were concentrated upon one.
The anti-grav-car circled around a three-hundred-foot steel tower that
supported a conveyer head spatially coexistent with one on a top floor
of some outtime tall building, and let down in front of a low
prefabricated steel shed. A man in police uniform came out to meet
them. There was a fifty-foot conveyer dome inside, and a fifty-foot
red-lined circle that marked the transposition point of an outtime
conveyer. They all entered the dome, and the operator put on the
transposition field.

"You haven't heard the worst of it yet." Skordran Kirv was saying. "On
this 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 a
memory-obliteration, or kill him," Vall said. "What do you know about
him?"

"Well, this Careba, the town he bosses, is a little walled town up in
the hills. Everybody there is related to everybody else; this man we
have, Coru-hin-Irigod, is the son of a sister of Nebu-hin-Abenoz's
wife. They're all bandits and slavers and cattle rustlers and what
have you. For the last ten years, Nebu-hin-Abenoz has been buying
slaves from some secret source. Before the Kholghoor Sector people
began coming in, they were mostly white, with a few brown people who
might have been Polynesians. No Negroes--there's no black race on this
sector, and I suppose the paratime slavers didn't want too many
questions asked. Coru-hin-Irigod, under narco-hypnosis, said that they
were 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 population
on some of these Esaron time lines is an anthropologist's nightmare."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

They emerged into the interior of a long shed, adobe-walled and
thatch-roofed, with small barred windows set high above the earth
floor. It was cool and shadowy, and the air was heavy with the
fragrance of citrus fruits. There were bins along the walls, some
partly full of oranges, and piles of wicker baskets. Another conveyer
dome stood beside the one in which they had arrived; two men in white
cloaks and riding boots sat on the edge of one of the bins, smoking
and talking.

Skordran Kirv introduced them--Gathon Dard and Krador Arv, special
detectives--and asked if anything new had come up. Krador Arv shook
his head.

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

[Illustration:]

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

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

"We'll have to take a chance on that," Vall said. "Are the
interrogations 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 Gathon
Dard out. In the yard outside, a gang of slaves were unloading a big
wagon of oranges and packing them into hampers; they were guarded by a
couple of native riflemen who seemed mostly concerned with keeping
them away from the shed, and a man in a white cloak was watching the
guards for the same purpose. He walked over and introduced himself to
Vall.

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

"Nasty business for you people," Vall sympathized. "If it's any
consolation, 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 forty
thousand Paratemporal Exchange Units invested in them. The top office
was very specific in requesting information about that."

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

"I'm new, here. The man I'm replacing broke his neck when his horse
put 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 to
work trying to contact the discarnate former plantation manager; at
Rhogom Institute, she had been working on the problem of return of a
discarnate personality from outtime.

"A few times," Skordran Kirv said. "Nothing suspicious; all local
stuff. We questioned Coru-hin-Irigod pretty closely on that point, and
he says that this is the first time he ever brought a batch of
Nebu-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 Kirv
used a door-activator to slide open a hidden door.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Two different time lines, and two different gangs of Wizard
Traders," Phrakor Vuln said. "We've established the latter from
physical descriptions and because both batches were sold by the
Croutha 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, and
mention of electric whips," he said. "I'm curious about where they
came from."

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

The sketches had been done with soft pencil; they bore repeated
erasures and corrections. That of the whip showed a cylindrical
handle, 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 little
nuclear-conversion battery in the grip. They heat up to about two
hundred centigrade; produce really painful burns."

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

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

Vall was looking at the other sketches. One was a musket, with a wide
butt and a band-fastened stock; the lock-mechanism, vaguely flintlock,
had been dotted in tentatively. The other was a long pistol, similarly
definite in outline and vague in mechanical detail; it was merely a
knob-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 or
high-order pre-mechanical cultures. Fact is, things like those could
have been made on the Kholghoor Sector, if the Kharandas had learned
to combine sulfur, carbon and nitrates to make powder."

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

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

As the detective led the slave out a door at the other side of the
room, the psychist came over to the long table, handing over a card
and 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. I
think we've about scraped bottom."

"You can't say that," Phrakor Vuln objected. "The very last one may
give 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 beside
that Croutha who took the shot at the wild pig or whatever it was on
the way to the Wizard Traders' camp. Best description of the guns
we've gotten so far. No question that they're flintlocks." He saw
Verkan 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 mechanically
enough to give a good description. A lot of peoples make flintlock
firearms."

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

Another interrogator came over, and then the fourth. For a while they
sat 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 been
badly blistered by the electric whips of the Wizard Traders; in spite
of reassurances, all were visibly apprehensive.

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

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

"Now, rest for a while," the psychist was saying. "Rest and let the
good medicine do its work. You are tired and sleepy. Look at this
magic 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 no
weapons, nor weapon-skill. Those who fought were all killed; we held
up 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 then
his lady drew a dagger and killed herself."

The psychist made a red mark on the card in front of him, and circled
the 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 had
the weapons of the Wizard Traders. Of these, they carried the long
weapons slung across their backs, and the short weapons thrust through
their belts."

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

They listened to both versions of what had happened at the sack of the
Lord Ghromdour's estate, and the march into the captured city of
Jhirda, and the second march into the forest to the camp of the Wizard
Traders.

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

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

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

"They killed my child, my little Zhouzha!" the woman with the horribly
blistered back was wailing. "They tore her out of my arms, and one of
the servants of the Wizard Traders--may Khokhaat devour his soul
forever!--dashed out her brains. And when I struggled to save her. I
was thrown on the ground, and beaten with the fire-whips until I
fainted. Then I was dragged into the forest, along with the others who
were chained with me." She buried her head in her arms, sobbing
bitterly.

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

"You will grieve no more for your child," she said. "Already, you are
forgetting what happened at the Wizard Traders' camp, and remembering
only that your child is safe from harm. Soon you will remember her
only as a dream of the child you hope to have, some day." She flashed
the light again, then handed it back to the psychist. "Now, tell us
what happened when you were taken into the forest; what did you see
there?"

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

Vall went over to the long table.

"Those slaves were still chained with the Wizard Traders' chains when
they were delivered here. Where are the chains?" he asked Skordran
Kirv.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"All right, then; let's forget about the vacation. You want to stay on
for a while and help me with this? It'll be a lot of hard work, but
we'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 well
filled in on this, and report to Tortha Karf and tell him I've taken
charge. You can stay here and help with these interrogations; I'll be
back in about ten hours. Then, we can go to Kholghoor East India
SecReg HQ to talk to Ranthar Jard. We may be able to get something
that'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, the
instrument panel'll tell us what time line they're working from, and
then we'll have them."

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

[Illustration:]

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Consolidated Outtime Foodstuffs--one of the Thalvan Interests
companies--just claimed forty thousand P.E.U. for a hundred slaves
bought by one of their plantation managers on Third Level Esaron from
a local slave dealer. The Paratime Police impounded the slaves for
narco-hypnotic interrogation, and then transposed the lot of them to
Police Terminal."

Yandar Yadd still held his affectation of sleepy indolence.

"Now why would the Paracops do that, I wonder? Slavery's an
established local practice on Esaron Sector; our people have to buy
slaves 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 the
treatment our people were giving them, or the Paratime Police, and I
want to find out which."

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

"The Paratime Police asked me to keep this confidential," Varkar Klav
said. "Publicity would seriously hamper an important police
investigation."

Yandar Yadd made an impolite noise. "How do I know that all it would
do would be to reveal police incompetence?" he retorted. "Look,
Varkar; you and the Paratime Police and the Paratime Commission and
the Home Time Line Management are all hired employees of the Home Time
Line public. The public has a right to know what its employees are
doing, and it's my business to see that they're informed. Now, for the
last 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 was
about Larv's age, fifty years ago. Anything I get, I put on the air or
not at my own discretion."

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

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

People were going to start wondering, he thought. This situation should
have been perfect for his purposes; as leader of the Opposition he could
easily make himself the next General Manager, if he exploited this
scandal properly. He listened for a while to the Centrist-Management
member who was speaking; he could rip that fellow's arguments to shreds
in a hundred words--but he didn't dare. The Management was taking
exactly the line Salgath Trod wanted the whole Council to take: treat
this affair as an isolated and extraordinary occurrence, find a couple
of convenient scapegoats, cobble up some explanation acceptable to the
public, and forget it. He wondered what had happened to the imbecile who
had transposed those Kholghoor Sector slaves onto an exploited time
line. Ought to be shanghaied to the Khiftan Sector and sold to the
priests of Fasif!

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

The young man in the loose wrap-around tunic who entered was a
stranger. At least, his face and his voice were strange, but voices
could be mechanically altered, and a skilled cosmetician could render
any face unrecognizable. He looked like a student, or a minor
commercial executive, or an engineer, or something like that. Of
course, his tunic bulged slightly under the left armpit, but even the
most respectable tunics showed occasional weapon-bulges.

"Good afternoon, councilman," the newcomer said, sitting down across
the desk from Salgath Trod. "I was just talking to ... somebody we
both know."

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

"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 Trod
asked. "If I were to act as everybody expects me to, I'd be down there
on the floor, now, clawing into the Management tooth and nail. All my
adherents are wondering why I'm not. So are all my opponents, and
before long one of them is going to guess the reason."

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

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

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

Salgath Trod nodded. "It would delay things, at least. And if Our
Mutual Friend can keep properly covered, I might be able to overturn
the Management." He looked at the screen again. "That old fool of a
Nanthav is just getting started; it'll be an hour before I could get
recognized. Plenty of time to get a speech together. Something short
and 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, you
want to avoid saying anything that would get Verkan Vall and Tortha
Karf 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, relying
on visual dumb-show to keep him informed of what was going on on the
Council floor. He didn't like the situation. It was too easy to say
the wrong thing. If only he knew more about the shadowy figures whose
messengers used his private door--

       *       *       *       *       *

Coru-hin-Irigod held his aching head in both hands, as though he were
afraid it would fall apart, and blinked in the sunlight from the
window. Lord Safar, how much of that sweet brandy had he drunk, last
night? He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, trying to think.
Then, suddenly apprehensive, he thrust his hand under his pillow. The
heavy 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. Two
thousand gold _obus_, the price of a hundred slaves. He snatched up
one of the pistols, his headache forgotten. Then he laughed and tossed
the pistol down again. Of course! He'd given the bag to the plantation
manager, what was his outlandish name, Dosu Golan, to keep for him
before the drinking bout had begun. It was safely waiting for him in
the plantation strong box. Well, nothing like a good scare to make a
man 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 beautiful
gleaming repeater, pulled down the lever far enough to draw the
cartridge halfway out of the chamber, and closed it again, lowering
the hammer. Those two Jeseru traders from the North, what were their
names? Ganadara and Atarazola. That was a stroke of luck, meeting them
here. They'd given him this lovely rifle, and they were going to
accompany him and his men back to Careba; they had a hundred such
rifles, and two hundred six-shot revolvers, and they wanted to trade
for slaves. The Lord Safar bless them both, wouldn't they be welcome
at Careba!

He looked at the sunlight falling through the window on the still
recumbent form of his companion, Faru-hin-Obaran. Outside, he could
hear the sounds of the plantation coming to life--an ax thudding on
wood, the clatter of pans from the kitchens. Crossing to
Faru-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 wrinkled
his brow. He could remember, clearly enough, the sale of the slaves,
but after that--Oh, well, he'd been drinking; it would all come back
to him, after a while.

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

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

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

Dalla, who had withdrawn from the discussion and was on a couch at the
side 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 and
precognition data," she said. "About six or eight hundred years ago,
there were religious wars and heresies and religious schisms all over
the Kharanda country. No matter how uniform the Kholghoor Sector may
be otherwise, there are dozens and dozens of small belts and
sub-sectors of different religions or sects or god-cults."

"That's right," Ranthar Jard agreed, brightening. "We have
hagiologists who know all that stuff; we'll have a couple of them
interrogate those slaves. I don't know how much they can get out of
them--lot of peasants, won't be up on the theological niceties--but a
synthesis 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 the
stories about the royal family are, that sort of thing."

Ranthar Jard looked at the map on the wall. "The Croutha have only
gotten halfway to Nharkan, here. Say we transpose detectives in at
night on some of these time lines we think are promising, and check
up at the tax-collection offices on a big landowner north of Jhirda
named 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 real
necessity for our trying to locate the Wizard Trader time lines? If
you 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," Ranthar
Jard told him. "And beside, when Skordran Kirv's gang hits the base of
operations in North America, there's no guarantee that they may not
have time to send off a radio warning to the crowd at the base here in
India. We have to hit both places at once."

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

Ranthar Jard shrugged. "I can get about five hundred men with
conveyers, including a couple of two-hundred-footers to carry
airboats," he said.

"Not enough. Skordran Kirv has one complete armored brigade, one
airborne infantry brigade, and an air cavalry regiment, with
Ghaldron-Hesthor equipment for a simultaneous transposition," Vall
said.

"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 have
another Prole insurrection while they're away--"

"Well, don't think I'm trying to argue policy with you," Ranthar Jard
said, "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 worried
about what the book says, forget it. We're throwing the book away, on
this operation. Do you realize that this thing is a threat to the
whole Paratime Civilization?"

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

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

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

Gathon Dard and Antrath Alv--temporary local aliases, Ganadara and
Atarazola--sat relaxed in their saddles, swaying to the motion of
their horses. They wore the rust-brown hooded cloaks of the northern
Jeseru people, in sober contrast to the red and yellow and blue
striped robes and sun-bonnets of the Caleras in whose company they
rode. They carried short repeating carbines in saddle scabbards, and
heavy revolvers and long knives on their belts, and each led six
heavily-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 the
North American West Coast on that sector, "we can see across the
valley to Careba. It will be an hour, as we ride, with the
pack-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 the
outlanders' plantation would bring a fine price in the North. The men
are strong, and have the look of good field-workers; the women are
comely and well-formed. Though I fear that my wife would little relish
it did I bring home such handmaidens."

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

"By Safar, if you doubt your welcome at Careba, wait till you show
your wares," another Calera said. "Rifles and revolvers like those
come to our country seldom, and then old and battered, sold or stolen
many times before we see them. Rifles that fire seven times without
taking butt from shoulder!" He invoked the name of the Great Lord
Safar again.

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

"He prays," Ganadara said. "He thanks our gods that we have lived to
see your town, and asks that we be spared to bring many more trains of
rifles 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 ribald
sign.

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

Ganadara nodded. The gods to whom his partner prayed were a couple of
paratime policemen, crouching over a radio a mile or so down the
ridge.

"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 been
included in the pseudo-memories he had been given under hypnosis. "I
serve 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 one
of his pistols and fired all four barrels in rapid succession into the
air, shouting, "Open! Open for Coru-hin-Irigod, and for the Jeseru
traders, Ganadara and Atarazola, who are with him!"

A head, black-bearded and sun-bonneted, appeared between the brick
merlons of the wall above the gate, shouted down a welcome, and then
turned away to bawl orders. The gate slid aside, and, after the
caravan had passed through, naked slaves pushed the massive thing shut
again. Although they were familiar with the interior of the town, from
photographs taken with boomerang-balls--automatic-return transposition
spheres like message-balls--they looked around curiously. The central
square was thronged--Caleras in striped robes, people from the south
and east in baggy trousers and embroidered shirts, mountaineers in
deerskins. A slave market was in progress, and some hundred-odd items
of human merchandise were assembled in little groups, guarded by their
owners and inspected by prospective buyers. They seemed to be all
natives of that geographic and paratemporal area.

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

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

The house of Nebu-hin-Abenoz, like every other building in Careba, was
flat-roofed, adobe-walled and window-less except for narrow
rifle-slits. The wide double-gate stood open, and five or six heavily
armed 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 to
slaves, who took them away. There were between fifty and sixty other
horses in the place.

[Illustration:]

Divesting themselves of their weapons in an anteroom at the head of a
flight of steps, they passed under an arch and into a wide, shady
patio, where thirty or forty men stood about or squatted on piles of
cushions, smoking cheroots, drinking from silver cups, talking in a
continuous babel. Most of them were in Calera dress, though there were
men of other communities and nations, in other garb. As they moved
across the patio, Gathon Dard caught snatches of conversations about
deals 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 to
intercept them.

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

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

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

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

Gathon Dard nodded. Evidently there was some sort of power-struggle
going on in Careba; Coru-hin-Irigod and his wife's father were of the
party of Nebu-hin-Abenoz, and wanted the repeaters and six-shooters
for 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 other
Caleras sat or squatted or reclined, all smoking the rank black
tobacco of the country and drinking wine or brandy. Their conversation
ceased as Cavu-hin-Avoran and the others approached. The chief of
Careba listened to the introduction, then heaved himself to his feet
and clapped the newcomers on the shoulders.

"Good, good!" he said. "We know you Jeseru people; you're honest
traders. You come this far into our mountains too seldom. We can trade
with you. We need weapons. As for the sort of slaves you want, we have
none too many now, but in eight days we will have plenty. If you stay
with 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-Irigod
answered for them. "The packs have been taken to my house, where our
friends will stay. We can bring a few to show you, the hour after
evening prayers."

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

"Better; I will be there, too," Cavu-hin-Avoran said, then turned to
Gathon 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 this
evening, Nebu-hin-Abenoz."

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

As they did, three men came pushing through the crowd toward
Nebu-hin-Abenoz's seat. They wore a costume unfamiliar to Gathon
Dard--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 the
Usasu 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 estate
of 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. "You
have the responsibility for the future of your kingdom, for a boy's
character 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 versed
in the arts of love, but innocent of heart. She should be wise, but
teachable; gentle and loving, but with a will of her own--"

The three men in white gowns were fidgeting. Then, suddenly, like three
marionettes on a single string, they put their right hands to their
mouths 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 the
three murderers and leaped across the room. Antrath Alv went bounding
after him, and by this time three or four of the group around
Nebu-hin-Abenoz's chair had recovered their wits and jumped to their
feet. 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 bottle
down on his head. Gathon Dard sprang upon the back of a second
assassin, hooking his left elbow under the fellow's chin and grabbing
the wrist of his knife-hand with his right; the man struggled for an
instant, then went limp and fell forward. The third of the trio of
murderers was still slashing at the fallen chieftain when Antrath Alv
chopped him along the side of the neck with the edge of his hand; he
simply dropped and lay still.

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

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

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

"Well, I'll swear I didn't think a little tap like I gave that one
would kill him," the bottle-wielder excused himself. "Of course, I was
thinking 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, his
neck would be broken, and it's not. See?" He twisted at the dead man's
neck. "I think they took poison before they drew their knives."

"I saw all of them put their hands to their mouths!" a Calera
exclaimed. "And look; see how their jaws are clenched." He picked up
one 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 and
his tongue are discolored; there is a strange smell, too."

Antrath Alv sniffed, then turned to his partner. "Halatane," he
whispered. Gathon Dard nodded. That was a First Level poison;
paratimers often carried halatane capsules on the more barbaric
time-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 to
kill, but I would not throw it away thus."

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

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

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

"In all my travels," he said, "I never saw a knife of this workmanship
before. Tell me, Coru-hin-Irigod, do you know from what country these
outland 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 sold
to Nebu-hin-Abenoz, and sold elsewhere by him, one who was a person of
consequence--the son of a king, or the priest of some god," Gathon
Dard suggested.

"By Safar, yes! And now that nation, wherever it is, is at blood-feud
with us," Cavu-hin-Avoran said. "This must be thought about; it is an
ill 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 the
hills have been uncircumcised," Coru-hin-Irigod said. "Jeseru, I think
you 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 their
hatred against all of us?"

"A hard question," Antrath Alv said. "You Caleras do not serve our
gods, but you are our friends. Suffer me to go apart and pray; I would
take 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 the
landing around at Police Terminal Dhergabar Equivalent when Vall and
Dalla left the rocket. Across the black lavalike pavement, they could
see the bulky form of Tortha Karf, hunched under a long cloak, with
his flat cap pulled down over his brow. He shook hands with Vall and
kissed 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 the
driver lifted straight up to two thousand feet and turned, soaring
down to land on the Chief's Headquarters Building, a mile away. "We're
not completely stopped, sir. Ranthar Jard is working on a few ideas
that may lead him to the Kholghoor time lines where the Wizard Traders
are operating. If we can't get them through their output, we may nail
them at the intake."

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

"I doubt if they've done that, Chief," Vall replied. "We don't know
who these people are, of course, and it's hard to judge their
reactions, but they're willing to take chances for big gains. I
believe they think they're safe, now that they've closed out the
compromised 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 the
slaves can tell him about their religious beliefs, about the local
king, and the prince of Jhirda, and the noble families of the
neighborhood," Vall said. "When he has it localized as closely as he
can, he's going to start pelting the whole paratemporal area with
photographic auto-return balls dropped from aircars on Police Terminal
over the spatial equivalents of a couple of Croutha-conquered cities.
As soon as he gets a photo that shows Croutha with firearms, he'll
have a Wizard Trader time line."

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

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

Tortha Karf looked sidewise at Verkan Vall. "Your girl has the makings
of 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 her
with me."

Tortha Karf nodded. He knew, too, that Dalla wouldn't want to have to
go 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 a
lot from Dalla. Fix her up with some kind of a title and police
status--technical-expert, assistant, or something like that." He
clasped hands, man-fashion, with her. "Glad to have you on the cops
with us, Dalla," he said. Then he turned to Vall. "There was almost
twenty-four hours between the time I heard about this and when this
blasted Yandar Yadd got hold of the story. Of all the infernal,
irresponsible--" He almost choked with indignation. "And it was
another fourteen hours between the time Skordran sent in his report
and I heard about it."

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

"That might be it," Tortha Karf considered. "I wish there were another
explanation, because that implies a very extensive intelligence
network, which means a big organization. But I'm afraid that's it. I
wish I could pull in everybody in Consolidated Outtime Foodstuffs who
handled that report, and narco-hypnotize them. Of course, we can't do
things like that on Home Time Line, and with the political situation
what it is now--"

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

Tortha Karf swore with weary bitterness. "Salgath Trod's what's been
happening. 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 Management
members were beginning to rally, and took the floor. The Centrists and
Right Moderates were trying the appeal-to-reason approach; that did as
much good as trying to put out a Fifth Level forest fire with a
hand-extinguisher. Finally. Salgath got a motion of censure against
the Management recognized. That means a confidence vote in ten days.
Salgath has a rabble of Leftists and dissident Centrists with him; I
doubt if he can muster enough votes to overturn the Management, but
it's going to make things rough for us."

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

"That," Tortha Karf said, "is being considered; there is a discreet
inquiry being made into Salgath Trod's associates, his sources of
income, 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 Home
Time Line than outtime."

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

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

"Well, I've studied illegal and subversive organizations all over
paratime, and among the really successful ones, there are a few
uniform principles. One is cellular organization--small groups, acting
in isolation from one another, coöperating with other cells but
ignorant of their composition. Another is the principle of no upward
contact--leaders contacting their subordinates through contact-blocks
and ignorant intermediaries. And another is a willingness to kill off
anybody who looks like a potential betrayer or forced witness. The
late Nebu-hin-Abenoz, for instance.

"I'll be willing to bet that if we pick up some of these Wizard
Traders, say, or a gang that's selling slaves to some Nebu-hin-Abenoz
personality on some other time line, and narco-hypnotize them, all
they'll be able to do will be name a few immediate associates, and the
group leader will know that he's contacted from time to time by some
stranger with orders, and that he can make emergency contacts only
through some blind accommodation-address. The men who are running this
are 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 a
chain-reaction of disclosures all through this Slave Trust."

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

"They'll leave traces; they won't be able to avoid it. I think, right
now, that Salgath Trod is one of them. I think there are other
prominent politicians, and business people. Look for irregularities
and peculiarities in outtime currency-exchange transactions. For
instance, to sections in Esaron Sector _obus_. Or big gold bullion
transactions."

"Yes. And if they have any really elaborate outtime bases, they'll
need equipment that can only be gotten on Home Time Line," Tortha Karf
added. "Paratemporal conveyer parts, and field-conductor mesh. You
can'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 an
instant.

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

"The people back of this," Dalla said, "are definitely classifiable as
criminals. They may never perform a criminal act themselves, but they
give orders for and profit from such acts, and they must possess the
motivation and psychology of criminals. We define people as criminals
when they suffer from psychological aberrations of an antisocial
character, usually paranoid--excessive egoism, disregard for the
rights of others, inability to recognize the social necessity for
mutual coöperation and confidence. On Home Time Line, we have
universal psychological testing, for the purpose of detecting and
eliminating such characteristics."

"It seems to have failed in this case," Tortha Karf began, then
snapped his fingers. "Of course! How blasted silly can I get, when I'm
not trying?"

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

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

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

[Illustration:]

"Those hundred slaves we got off the Esaron Sector," Vall said. "What
are we going to do with them? And if we locate the time line the
slavers 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, settle
them somewhere on the Service Sector. I know, the Paratime
Transposition Code limits the Service Sector to natives of time lines
below second-order barbarism, but the Paratime Transposition Code has
been so badly battered by this business that a few more minor literal
infractions here and there won't make any difference. Where are they
now?"

"Police Terminal, Nharkan Equivalent."

"Better hold them there, for the time being. We may have to open a new
ServSec time line to take care of all the slaves we find, if we can
locate the outtime base line these people are using--Vall, this
thing's too big to handle as a routine operation, along with our other
work. You take charge of it. Set up your headquarters here, and help
yourself to anything in the way of personnel and equipment you need.
And bear in mind that this confidence vote is coming up in ten
days--on the morning of One-Seven-Two Day. I'm not asking for any
miracles, but if we don't get this thing cleared up by then, we're in
for 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 invitation
for 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 to
business, Dras still owns Consolidated Outtime Foodstuffs," he said.
"He might be able to find out, or help us find out, how the story
about those slaves leaked out of his company."

"Well, that won't take much doing," Dalla said. "If there's as much
excitement on Home Time Line as I think, Dras would turn somersaults
and 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 one
side impatiently.

"Well, what else did you expect?" he demanded. "This was the logical
next move. BuPsychHyg is supposed to detect anybody who believes in
looking out for his own interests first, and condition him into a
pious law-abiding sucker. Well, the sacred Bureau of Sucker-Makers
slipped 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 the
wrap-around tunic added. "I don't want my psychotests reviewed by some
duty-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 called
criminal tendencies are the result of the individual's total
environment, and that psychotesting and personality-analysis are
valueless, because the total environment changes from day to day, even
from hour to hour--"

"That won't do," the nameless young man who was the messenger of
somebody equally nameless retorted. "Frasthor's a crackpot; no
reputable psychologist or psychist gives his opinions a moment's
consideration. And besides, we don't want to attack Psychological
Hygiene. The people in it with whom we can do business are our
safeguard; they've given all of us a clean bill of mental health, and
we have papers to prove it. What we have to do is to make it appear
that that incident on the Esaron Sector is all there is to this, and
also involve the Paratime Police themselves. The slavers are all
paracops. It isn't the fault of BuPsychHyg, because the Paratime
Police have their own psychotesting staff. That's where the trouble
is; 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 these
new revelations about the Wizard Traders. You'll accuse the Paratime
Police of being the Wizard Traders themselves. Why not? They have
their own paratemporal transposition equipment shops on Police
Terminal, they have facilities for manufacturing duplicates of any
kind of outtime items, like the firearms, for instance, and they know
which time lines on which sectors are being exploited by legitimate
paratime traders and which aren't. What's to prevent a gang of
unscrupulous paracops from moving in on a few unexploited Kholghoor
time lines, buying captives from the Croutha, and shipping them to the
Esaron Sector?"

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

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

"So, this Skordran Kirv, who is a dumb boy who doesn't know what the
score 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 stories
about a gigantic paratemporal conspiracy, to get more appropriations
and 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, and
that would mean narco-hypnosis, and then it would all come out."

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

Salgath Trod made a noise of angry disgust.

"That's ridiculous! I suppose these Kharandas will be given what is
deludedly known as memory obliteration, and a set of pseudo-memories;
how long do you think that would last? About three ten-days. There is
no such thing as memory obliteration; there's memory-suppression, and
pseudo-memory overlay. You can't get behind that with any quickie
narco-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 false
memories and blockages can be peeled off. And then where would we be?"

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

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

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

"Look, Salgath; this is an Organization order," he said. "You don't
refuse to obey Organization orders, and you don't quit the
Organization. Now get smart, big boy; do what you're told to." He took
a 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 it
exactly." He stood watching Salgath Trod for a moment. "I won't bother
telling you what'll happen to you if you don't," he added. "You can
figure 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 toward
the 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 the
front 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, and
we'll probably go night-clubbing afterward. Tomorrow morning, all the
anti-Management commentators will be yakking about my carousing around
when I ought to be battling the Slave Trust. No use advertising myself
with an official car, and giving them a chance to add, 'at public
expense.'"

"Well, have some fun while you can," the driver advised, reaching for
the 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 floors
down.

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

Vall nodded. "Ill talk to her about it now," he said. "Lay out my
dress 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 the
dressing rooms, turning right into Vall's. Vall followed him, turning
left 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 a
plastic-sheeted couch, while her maid, Rendarra, was rubbing her body
vigorously with some pungent-smelling stuff about the consistency of
machine-grease. Her face was masked in the stuff, and her hair was
covered with an elastic cap. He had always suspected that beauty was
the real feminine religion, from the willingness of its devotees to
submit 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 a
police force and I have liaison officers in every organization down to
Sector Regional so that I can be informed promptly in case anything
new turns up anywhere. What's been happening on Home Time Line? I
picked up a news-summary at Paratime Police Headquarters; it seems
that a lot more stuff has leaked out. Kholghoor Sector, Wizard Traders
and all. How'd it happen?"

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

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

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

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

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

No. The Organization wouldn't let that happen, and the only way it
could be prevented would be by the death of Salgath Trod, as soon as
he had made his speech. All the talk of providing him with
corroborative evidence was silly; it had been intended to lead him
more trustingly to the slaughter. They'd kill him, of course, in some
way that would be calculated to substantiate the story he would no
longer be able to repudiate. The killer, who would be promptly rayed
dead by somebody else, would wear a Paratime Police uniform, or
something like that. That was of no importance, however; by then, he'd
be beyond caring.

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

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

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

"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, a
brutal scarlet and apple-green abstraction, that hung on the wall.
Swinging it aside and revealing the safe behind it, he used his
identity-sigil, took out a wad of Paratemporal Exchange Bank notes and
gave them to the girl.

"Here, Zinganna; take these, and take Nindrandigro and Calilla out for
the evening. Go where you can all have a good time, and don't come
back 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 him
enthusiastically. "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 have
to keep my mind on business."

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

There was only one way out alive. He knew that, and yet he needed