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twohundredfoot conveyers, having unloaded soldiers and fightinggear, were
coming in to take on unconscious slaves for transposition to Police Terminal.
Aircars and airboats were bringing in gassed slavers;
they were being shackled and dumped into the slave barracks; as soon as the
gas cleared and they could be brought back to consciousness, they would be
narcohypnotized and questioned.
He had finished a tour of the warehouses, looking at the kegs of gunpowder and
the casks of brandy, the piles of pig lead, the stacks of cases containing
muskets. These must have all come from some loworder handcraft time line. Then
there were swords and hatchets and knives that had been made on Industrial
Sectorthe
Organization must be getting them through some legitimate trading companyand
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mirrors and perfumes and synthetic fiber textiles and cheap jewelry, of
similar provenance. It looked as though this stuff had been brought in by ship
from somewhere else on this time line; the warehouses were too far from the
conveyers and right beside the ship dock
There was a tremendous explosion somewhere. Vall and the men with him ran
outside, looking about, the soundphones of their helmets giving them no idea
of the source of the sound. One of the policemen pointed, and Vall's eyes
followed his arm. The ship that had been transposed in in the big conveyer was
falling, blown in half; as he looked, both sections hit the ground several
miles away. A strange ship, a freighter, was coming in fast, and as he
watched, a blue spark winked from her bow as a heavyduty blaster was
activated. There was another explosion, overhead; they all ran for shelter as
Vall's commandconveyer disintegrated into falling scrapmetal. At once, all the
other conveyers which were on antigrav began flashing and vanishing.
That was the right, the only, thing to do, he knew. But it was leaving him and
his men isolated and under attack.
* * * * *
Time Crime
Part 2
62
"So that was it," Dalgroth Sorn, the Paratime Commissioner for Security said,
relieved when Tortha Karf had finished.
"Yes, and I'll repeat it under narcohyp, too," Tortha Karf added.
"Oh, don't talk that way, Karf," Dalgroth Sorn scolded. He was at least a
century Tortha Karf's senior; he had the face of an elderly and soretoothed
lion. "You wanted to keep this prisoner under wraps till you could mindpump
him, and you wanted the Organization to think Salgath was alive and talking. I
approve both.
But"
He gestured to the viewscreen across the room, tuned to a pickup back of the
Speaker's chair in the Council
Chamber. Tortha Karf turned a knob to bring the sound volume up.
"Well. I'm raising this point," a member from the Management seats in the
center was saying, "because these earlier charges of illegal arrest and
illegal detention are part and parcel with the charges growing out of the
telecast last evening."
"Well, that telecast was a fake; that's been established," somebody on the
left heckled.
"Councilman Salgath's confession on the evening of OneSixTwo Day wasn't a
fake, the Management supporter, Nanthav Skov, retorted.
"Well, then why was it necessary to fake the second one?"
A light began winking on the big panel in front of the Speaker, Asthar Varn.
"I recognize Councilman Hasthor Flan," Asthar said.
"I believe I can construct a theory that will explain that," Hasthor Flan
said. "I suggest that when the Paratime
Police were questioning Councilman Salgath under narcohypnosis, he made
statements incriminating either the Paratime Police as a whole or some member
of the Paratime Police whom Tortha Karf had to protectsay somebody like
Assistant Verkan. So they just killed him, and made up this impostor"
Tortha Karf began, alphabetically, to blaspheme every god he had ever heard
of. He had only gotten as far as a Fourth Level deity named Allah when a red
light began flashing in front of Asthar Varn, and the voice of a pagerobot,
amplified, roared:
"Point of special urgency! Point of special urgency! It has been requested
that the news telecast screen be activated at once, with playback to 1107. An
important bulletin has just come in from Nagorabar, Home Time
Line, on the Indian subcontinent"
"You can stop swearing, now, Karf," Dalgroth Sorn grinned. "I think this is
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it."
* * * * *
Kostran Galth sat on the edge of the couch, with one arm around Zinganna's
waist; on the other side of him, Hadron Dalla lay at full length, her elbows
propped and her chin in her hands. The screen in front of them showed a fading
sunset, although it was only a little past noon at Dhergabar Equivalent. A
dark ship was coming slowly in against the red sky; in the center of a
wirefenced compound a hundredfoot conveyer hung on antigrav twenty feet from
the ground, and beyond, a long metal prefabshed was spilling light from open
doors and windows.
Time Crime
Part 2
63
"That crowd that was just taken in won't be finished for a couple of hours," a
voice was saying. "I don't know how much they'll be able to tell; the
psychists say they're all telling about the same stories. What those stories
are, of course, I'm not able to repeat. After the trouble caused by a certain
news commentator who shall be namelesshe's not connected with this news
service, I'm happy to saywe're all leaning over backward to keep from breaking
Paratime Police security.
"One thing; shortly after the arrival of the second ship from Police
Terminaland believe me, that ship came in just in the nick of time!the dead
Abzar city which the criminals were using as their main base for this time
line, and from which they launched the air attack against us, was located, and
now word has come in that it is entirely in the hands of the Paratime Police.
Personally, I doubt if a great deal of information has been gotten from any
prisoners taken there. The lengths to which this Organization went to keep
their own people in ignorance is simply unbelievable."
A man appeared for a moment in the lighted doorway of the shed, then stepped
outside.
"Look!" Dalla cried. "There's Vall!"
"There's Assistant Verkan, now," the commentator agreed. "Chief's Assistant,
would you mind saying a few words, here? I know you're a busy man, sir, but
you are also the public hero of Home Time Line, and everybody will be glad if
you say something to them"
* * * * *
Tortha Karf sealed the door of the apartment behind them, then activated one
of the robot servants and sent it gliding out of the room for drinks. Verkan
Vall took off his belt and holster and laid them aside, then dropped into a
deep chair with a sigh of relief. Dalla advanced to the middle of the room and
stood looking about in surprised delight.
"Didn't expect this, from the mess outside?" Vall asked. "You know, you really
are on the paracops, now.
Nobody off the Force knows about this hideout of the Chief's."
"You'd better find a place like this, too," Tortha Karf advised. "From now on,
you'll have about as much privacy at that apartment in Turquoise Towers as
you'd enjoy on the stage of Dhergabar Opera House."
"Just what is my new position?" Vall asked, hunting his cigarette case out of
his tunic. "Duplicate Chief of
Paratime Police?"
* * * * *
The robot came back with three tall glasses and a refrigerated decanter on its
top. It stopped in front of Tortha
Karf and slewed around on its treads; he filled a glass and sent it to the
chair where Dalla had seated herself; [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]