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.