"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 rea.s.suringly. "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 pa.s.sed. 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-IriG.o.d 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 rec.u.mbent 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-IriG.o.d 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 G.o.d-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 a.s.sistant," 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 a.s.sistant 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-IriG.o.d, 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 G.o.ds--and yours, Coru-hin-IriG.o.d--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-IriG.o.d 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 b.u.t.t 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-IriG.o.d inquired of Ganadara what he did.