about it."
The screen lit, and Yandar Yadd automatically pressed a button for aphoto-copy. The two newsmen stared for a moment, and then even YandarYadd's shell of drowsy negligence cracked and fell from him. His handbrushed the switch as he snatched the hand-phone from his belt.
"Marva!" he barked, before the girl at the news office could more thanacknowledge. "Get this recorded for immediate telecast!... Ready?Beginning: The existence of a huge paratemporal slave trade came tolight on the afternoon of One-Five-Nine Day, on a time line of theThird Level Esaron Sector, when Field Agent Skordran Kirv, ParatimePolice, discovered, at an orange plantation of Consolidated OuttimeFoodstuffs--"
* * * * *
Salgath Trod sat alone in his private office, his half-finished lunchgrowing cold on the desk in front of him as he watched the televiewscreen across the room, tuned to a pickup behind the Speaker's chairin the Executive Council Chamber ten stories below. The two thousandseats had been almost all empty at 1000, when Council had convened.Fifteen minutes later, the news had broken; now, at 1430, a good threequarters of the seats were occupied. He could see, in the aisles, thegold-plated robot pages gliding back and forth, receiving anddelivering messages. One had just slid up to the seat of CouncilmanHasthor Flan, and Hasthor was speaking urgently into the recordermouthpiece. Another message for him, he supposed; he'd gotten at leasta score such calls since the crisis had developed.
People were going to start wondering, he thought. This situation shouldhave been perfect for his purposes; as leader of the Opposition he couldeasily make himself the next General Manager, if he exploited thisscandal properly. He listened for a while to the Centrist-Managementmember who was speaking; he could rip that fellow's arguments to shredsin a hundred words--but he didn't dare. The Management was takingexactly the line Salgath Trod wanted the whole Council to take: treatthis affair as an isolated and extraordinary occurrence, find a coupleof convenient scapegoats, cobble up some explanation acceptable to thepublic, and forget it. He wondered what had happened to the imbecile whohad transposed those Kholghoor Sector slaves onto an exploited timeline. Ought to be shanghaied to the Khiftan Sector and sold to thepriests of Fasif!
A buzzer sounded, and for an instant he thought it would be themessage he had seen Hasthor Fan recording. Then he realized that itwas the buzzer for the private door, which could only be operated bysomeone with a special identity sign. He pressed a button and unlockedthe door.
The young man in the loose wrap-around tunic who entered was astranger. At least, his face and his voice were strange, but voicescould be mechanically altered, and a skilled cosmetician could renderany face unrecognizable. He looked like a student, or a minorcommercial executive, or an engineer, or something like that. Ofcourse, his tunic bulged slightly under the left armpit, but even themost respectable tunics showed occasional weapon-bulges.
"Good afternoon, councilman," the newcomer said, sitting down acrossthe desk from Salgath Trod. "I was just talking to ... somebody weboth know."
Salgath Trod offered cigarettes, lighted his visitor's and then hisown.
"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 Trodasked. "If I were to act as everybody expects me to, I'd be down thereon the floor, now, clawing into the Management tooth and nail. All myadherents are wondering why I'm not. So are all my opponents, andbefore long one of them is going to guess the reason."
"Well, why not go down?" the stranger asked. "Our Mutual Friend thinksit would be an excellent idea. The leak couldn't be stopped, and it'sgone so far already that the Management will never be able to play itdown. So the next best thing is to try to exploit it."
Salgath Trod smiled mirthlessly. "So I am to get in front of it, andlead it in the right direction? Fine ... as long as I don't stumbleover something. If I do, it'll go over me like a Fifth Levelbison-herd."
"Don't worry about that," the stranger laughed reassuringly. "Thereare others on the floor who are also friends of Our Mutual Friend.Here: what you'd better do is attack the Paratime Police, especiallyTortha Karf and Verkan Vall. Accuse them of negligence andincompetence, and, by implication, of collusion, and demand a specialcommittee to investigate. And try to get a motion for a confidencevote passed. A motion to censure the Management, say--"
Salgath Trod nodded. "It would delay things, at least. And if OurMutual Friend can keep properly covered, I might be able to overturnthe Management." He looked at the screen again. "That old fool of aNanthav is just getting started; it'll be an hour before I could getrecognized. Plenty of time to get a speech together. Something shortand 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, youwant to avoid saying anything that would get Verkan Vall and TorthaKarf 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, relyingon visual dumb-show to keep him informed of what was going on on theCouncil floor. He didn't like the situation. It was too easy to saythe wrong thing. If only he knew more about the shadowy figures whosemessengers used his private door--
* * * * *
Coru-hin-Irigod held his aching head in both hands, as though he wereafraid it would fall apart, and blinked in the sunlight from thewindow. Lord Safar, how much of that sweet brandy had he drunk, lastnight? He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, trying to think.Then, suddenly apprehensive, he thrust his hand under his pillow. Theheavy 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. Twothousand gold _obus_, the price of a hundred slaves. He snatched upone of the pistols, his headache forgotten. Then he laughed and tossedthe pistol down again. Of course! He'd given the bag to the plantationmanager, what was his outlandish name, Dosu Golan, to keep for himbefore the drinking bout had begun. It was safely waiting for him inthe plantation strong box. Well, nothing like a good scare to make aman 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 beautifulgleaming repeater, pulled down the lever far enough to draw thecartridge halfway out of the chamber, and closed it again, loweringthe hammer. Those two Jeseru traders from the North, what were theirnames? Ganadara and Atarazola. That was a stroke of luck, meeting themhere. They'd given him this lovely rifle, and they were going toaccompany him and his men back to Careba; they had a hundred suchrifles, and two hundred six-shot revolvers, and they wanted to tradefor slaves. The Lord Safar bless them both, wouldn't they be welcomeat Careba!
He looked at the sunlight falling through the window on the stillrecumbent form of his companion, Faru-hin-Obaran. Outside, he couldhear the sounds of the plantation coming to life--an ax thudding onwood, the clatter of pans from the kitchens. Crossing toFaru-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 wrinkledhis brow. He could remember, clearly enough, the sale of the slaves,but after that--Oh, well, he'd been drinking; it would all come backto him, after a while.
* * * * *
Verkan Vall rubbed his hand over his face wearily, started to lightanother cigarette, and threw it across the room in disgust. What heneeded was a drink--a long drink of coo
l, tart white wine, laced withbrandy--and then he needed to sleep.
"We're absolutely nowhere!" Ranthar Jard said. "Of course they'reoperating on time lines we've never penetrated. The fact that they'resupplying the Croutha with guns proves that; there isn't a firearm onany of the time lines our people are legitimately exploiting. Andthere are only about three billion time lines on this belt of theCroutha invasion--"
"If we could think of a way to reduce it to some specific area ofparatime--" one of Ranthar Jard's deputies began.
"That's precisely what we've been trying to do, Klav," Vall said. "Wehaven't done it."
Dalla, who had withdrawn from the discussion and was on