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."