the secrets of the god. And there would always be an idol ofYat-Zar, obviously of heavenly origin, since its workmanship wasbeyond the powers of any local craftsman. The priests of such a templewould be exempt, by divine decree, from the rule of yearly travel.
Nobody, of course, would have the least idea that there was a uraniummine in operation under it, shipping ore to another time-line. TheHulgun people knew nothing about uranium, and neither did they as muchas dream that there were other time-lines. The secret of paratimetransposition belonged exclusively to the First Level civilizationwhich had discovered it, and it was a secret that was guarded well.
* * * * *
Stranor Sleth, dropping to the bottom of the antigrav shaft, cast ahasty and instinctive glance to the right, where the freight conveyerswere. One was gone, taking its cargo over hundreds of thousands ofpara-years to the First Level. Another had just returned, empty, and athird was receiving its cargo from the robot mining machines far backunder the mountain. Two young men and a girl, in First Level costumes,sat at a bank of instruments and visor-screens, handling the wholeoperation, and six or seven armed guards, having inspected thenewly-arrived conveyer and finding that it had picked up nothinginimical en route, were relaxing and lighting cigarettes. Three ofthem, Stranor Sleth noticed, wore the green uniforms of the ParatimePolice.
"When did those fellows get in?" he asked the people at the controldesk, nodding toward the green-clad newcomers.
"About ten minutes ago, on the passenger conveyer," the girl told him."The Big Boy's here. Brannad Klav. And a Paratime Police officer.They're in your office."
"Uh huh; I was expecting that," Stranor Sleth nodded. Then he turneddown the corridor to the left.
Two men were waiting for him, in his office. One was short and stocky,with an angry, impatient face--Brannad Klav, Transtemporal's vicepresident in charge of operations. The other was tall and slender withhandsome and entirely expressionless features; he wore a ParatimePolice officer's uniform, with the blue badge of hereditary nobilityon his breast, and carried a sigma-ray needler in a belt holster.
"Were you waiting long, gentlemen?" Stranor Sleth asked. "I washolding Sunset Sacrifice up in the temple."
"No, we just got here," Brannad Klav said. "This is Verkan Vall,Mavrad of Nerros, special assistant to Chief Tortha of the ParatimePolice, Stranor Sleth, our resident agent here."
Stranor Sleth touched hands with Verkan Vall.
"I've heard a lot about you, sir," he said. "Everybody working inparatime has, of course. I'm sorry we have a situation here that callsfor your presence, but since we have, I'm glad you're here in person.You know what our trouble is, I suppose?"
"In a general way," Verkan Vall replied. "Chief Tortha, and BrannadKlav, have given me the main outline, but I'd like to have you fill inthe details."
"Well, I told you everything," Brannad Klav interrupted impatiently."It's just that Stranor's let this blasted local king, Kurchuk, getout of control. If I--" He stopped short, catching sight of theshoulder holster under Stranor Sleth's left arm. "Were you wearingthat needler up in the temple?" he demanded.
"You're blasted right I was!" Stranor Sleth retorted. "And any time Ican't arm myself for my own protection on this time-line, you can havemy resignation. I'm not getting into the same jam as those people atZurb."
"Well, never mind about that," Verkan Vall intervened. "Of courseStranor Sleth has a right to arm himself; I wouldn't think of beingcaught without a weapon on this time-line, myself. Now, Stranor,suppose you tell me what's been happening, here, from the beginning ofthis trouble."
"It started, really, about five years ago, when Kurchuk, the King ofZurb, married this Chuldun princess, Darith, from the country overbeyond the Black Sea, and made her his queen, over the heads of abouta dozen daughters of the local nobility, whom he'd married previously.Then he brought in this Chuldun scribe, Labdurg, and made him Overseerof the Kingdom--roughly, prime minister. There was a lot ofdissatisfaction about that, and for a while it looked as though he wasgoing to have a revolution on his hands, but he brought in about fivethousand Chuldun mercenaries, all archers--these Hulguns can't shoot abow worth beans--so the dissatisfaction died down, and so did most ofthe leaders of the disaffected group. The story I get is that thisLabdurg arranged the marriage, in the first place. It looks to me asthough the Chuldun emperor is intending to take over the Hulgunkingdoms, starting with Zurb.
]
"Well, these Chulduns all worship a god called Muz-Azin. Muz-Azin is acrocodile with wings like a bat and a lot of knife blades in his tail.He makes this Yat-Zar look downright beautiful. So do his habits.Muz-Azin fancies human sacrifices. The victims are strung up by theankles on a triangular frame and lashed to death with iron-barbedwhips. Nasty sort of a deity, but this is a nasty time-line. Thepeople here get a big kick out of watching these sacrifices. Muchbetter show than our bunny-killing. The victims are usually criminals,or overage or incorrigible slaves, or prisoners of war.
"Of course, when the Chulduns began infiltrating the palace, theybrought in their crocodile-god, too, and a flock of priests, and KingKurchuk let them set up a temple in the palace. Naturally, we preachedagainst this heathen idolatry in our temples, but religious bigotryisn't one of the numerous imperfections of this sector. Everybody'sdeity is as good as anybody else's--indifferentism, I believe, is thetheological term. Anyhow, on that basis things went along fairly well,till two years ago, when we had this run of bad luck."
"Bad luck!" Brannad Klav snorted. "That's the standing excuse of everyincompetent!"
"Go on, Stranor; what sort of bad luck?" Verkan Vall asked.
"Well, first we had a drought, beginning in early summer, that burnedup most of the grain crop. Then, when that broke, we got heavy rainsand hailstorms and floods, and that destroyed what got through the dryspell. When they harvested what little was left, it was obviousthere'd be a famine, so we brought in a lot of grain by conveyer anddistributed it from the temples--miraculous gift of Yat-Zar, ofcourse. Then the main office on First Level got scared about floodingthis time-line with a lot of unaccountable grain and were afraid we'dmake the people suspicious, and ordered it stopped.
"Then Kurchuk, and I might add that the kingdom of Zurb was thehardest hit by the famine, ordered his army mobilized and started aninvasion of the Jumdun country, south of the Carpathians, to getgrain. He got his army chopped up, and only about a quarter of themgot back, with no grain. You ask me, I'd say that Labdurg framed it tohappen that way. He advised Kurchuk to invade, in the first place, andI mentioned my suspicion that Chombrog, the Chuldun Emperor, isplanning to move in on the Hulgun kingdoms. Well, what would besmarter than to get Kurchuk's army smashed in advance?"
"How did the defeat occur?" Verkan Vall asked. "Any suspicion oftreachery?"
"Nothing you could put your finger on, except that the Jumduns seemedto have pretty good intelligence about Kurchuk's invasion route andbattle plans. It could have been nothing worse than stupid tactics onKurchuk's part. See, these Hulguns, and particularly the ZurbHulguns, are spearmen. They fight in a fairly thin line, withheavy-armed infantry in front and light infantry with throwing-spearsbehind. The nobles fight in light chariots, usually at the center ofthe line, and that's where they were at this Battle of Jorm. Kurchukhimself was at the center, with his Chuldun archers massed around him.
"The Jumduns use a lot of cavalry, with long swords and lances, and alot of big chariots with two javelin men and a driver. Well, insteadof ramming into Kurchuk's center, where he had his archers, they hitthe extreme left and folded it up, and then swung around behind andhit the right from the rear. All the Chuldun archers did was standfast around the king and shoot anybody who came close to them: theywere left pretty much alone. But the Hulgun spearmen were cut topieces. The battle ended with Kurchuk and his nobles and his archersmaking a fighting retreat, while the Jumdun cavalry were chasing thespearmen every which way and cutting them down or lancing them as theyran.
"Well, whethe
r it was Labdurg's treachery or Kurchuk's stupidity, ineither case, it was natural for the archers to come off easiest andthe Hulgun spearmen to pay the butcher's bill. But try and tell theseknuckle-heads anything like that! Muz-Azin protected the Chulduns, andYat-Zar let the Hulguns down, and that was all there was to it. TheZurb temple started losing worshipers, particularly the families ofthe men who didn't make it back from Jorm.
"If that had been all there'd been to it, though, it still wouldn'thave hurt the mining operations, and we could have got by. But whatreally tore it was when the rabbits started to die." Stranor Slethpicked up a cigar from his