Time Crime
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Transcriber's note.
This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction Magazine
February and March 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any
evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed.
TIME CRIME
BY H. BEAM PIPER
_First of Two Parts. The Paratime Police had a real headache this
time! Tracing one man in a population of millions is easy--compared
to finding one gang hiding out on one of billions of probability lines!_
Illustrated by Freas
ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION
Kiro Soran, the guard captain, stood in the shadow of the veranda
roof, his white cloak thrown back to display the scarlet lining. He
rubbed his palm reflectively on the checkered butt of his revolver and
watched the four men at the table.
"And ten tens are a hundred," one of the clerks in blue jackets said,
adding another stack to the pile of gold coins.
"Nineteen hundreds," one of the pair in dirty striped robes agreed,
taking a stone from the box in front of him and throwing it away. Only
one stone remained. "One more hundred to pay."
One of the blue-jacketed plantation clerks made a tally mark; his
companion counted out coins, ten and ten and ten.
Dosu Golan, the plantation manager, tapped impatiently on his polished
boot leg with a thin riding whip.
"I don't like this," he said, in another and entirely different
language. "I know, chattel slavery's an established custom on this
sector, and we have to conform to local usages, but it sickens me to
have to haggle with these swine over the price of human beings. On
the Zarkantha Sector, we used nothing but free wage-labor."
"Migratory workers," the guard captain said. "Humanitarian
considerations aside, I can think of a lot better ways of meeting the
labor problem on a fruit plantation than by buying slaves you need for
three months a year and have to feed and quarter and clothe and doctor
the whole twelve."
"Twenty hundreds of _obus_," the clerk who had been counting the money
said. "That is the payment, is it not, Coru-hin-Irigod?"
"That is the payment," the slave dealer replied.
The clerk swept up the remaining coins, and his companion took them
over and put them in an iron-bound chest, snapping the padlock. The
two guards who had been loitering at one side slung their rifles and
picked up the chest, carrying it into the plantation house. The slave
dealer and his companion arose, putting their money into a leather
bag; Coru-hin-Irigod turned and bowed to the two men in white cloaks.
"The slaves are yours, noble lords," he said.
Across the plantation yard, six more men in striped robes, with
carbines slung across their backs, approached; with them came another
man in a hooded white cloak, and two guards in blue jackets and red
caps, with bayoneted rifles. The man in white and his armed attendants
came toward the house; the six Calera slavers continued across the
yard to where their horses were picketed.
"If I do not offend the noble lords, then," Coru-hin-Irigod said, "I
beg their sufferance to depart. I and my men have far to ride if we
would reach Careba by nightfall. The Lord, the Great Lord, the Lord
God Safar watch between us until we meet again."
Urado Alatana, the labor foreman, came up onto the porch as the two
slavers went down.
"Have a good look at them, Radd?" the guard captain asked.
"You think I'm crazy enough to let those bandits out of here with two
thousand _obus_--forty thousand Paratemporal Exchange Units--of the
Company's money without knowing what we're getting?" the other
parried. "They're all right--nice, clean, healthy-looking lot. I did
everything but take them apart and inspect the pieces while they were
being unshackled at the stockade. I'd like to know where this
Coru-hin-Whatshisname got them, though. They're not local stuff. Lot
darker, and they're jabbering among themselves in some lingo I never
heard before. A few are wearing some rags of clothing, and they have
odd-looking sandals. I noticed that most of them showed marks of
recent whipping. That may mean they're troublesome, or it may just
mean that these Caleras are a lot of sadistic brutes."
"Poor devils!" The man called Dosu Golan was evidently hoping that
he'd never catch himself talking about fellow humans like that. The
guard captain turned to him.
"Coming to have a look at them, Doth?" he asked.
"You go, Kirv; I'll see them later."
"Still not able to look the Company's property in the face?" the
captain asked gently. "You'll not get used to it any sooner than now."
"I suppose you're right." For a moment Dosu Golan watched
Coru-hin-Irigod and his followers canter out of the yard and break
into a gallop on the road beyond. Then he tucked his whip under his
arm. "All right, then. Let's go see them."
The labor foreman went into the house; the manager and the guard
captain went down the steps and set out across the yard. A big
slat-sided wagon, drawn by four horses, driven by an old slave in a
blue smock and a thing like a sunbonnet, rumbled past, loaded with
newly-picked oranges. Blue woodsmoke was beginning to rise from the
stoves at the open kitchen and a couple of slaves were noisily
chopping wood. Then they came to the stockade of close-set pointed
poles. A guard sergeant in a red-trimmed blue jacket, armed with a
revolver, met them with a salute which Kiro Soran returned: he
unfastened the gate and motioned four or five riflemen into positions
from which they could fire in between the poles in case the slaves
turned on their new owners.
There seemed little danger of that, though Kiro Soran kept his hand
close to the butt of his revolver. The slaves, an even hundred of
them, squatted under awnings out of the sun, or stood in line to drink
at the water-butt. They furtively watched the two men who had entered
among them, as though expecting blows or kicks; when none were
forthcoming, they relaxed slightly. As the labor foreman had said,
they were clean and looked healthy. They were all nearly naked; there
were about as many women as men, but no children or old people.
"Radd's right," the captain told the new manager. "They're not local.
Much darker skins, and different face-structure; faces wedge-shaped
instead of oval, and differently shaped noses, and brown eyes instead
of black. I've seen people like that, somewhere, but--"
He fell silent. A suspicion, utterly fantastic, had begun to form in
his mind, and he stepped closer to a group of a dozen-odd, the manager
following him. One or two had been unmercifully lashed, not long ago,
and all bore a few lash-marks. Odd sort of marks, more like
burn-blisters than welts. He'd have to have the Company doctor look at
them. Then he caught their speech, and the suspicion was converted to
certainty.
"These are not like the others: they wear fine garments, and walk
proudly. They look stern, but not cruel. They are the real masters
here; the others are but servants."
He grasped the manager's arm and drew him aside.
"You know that language?" he asked. When the man called Dosu Golan
shook his head, he continued: "That's Kharanda; it's a dialect spoken
by a people in the Ganges Valley, in India, on the Kholghoor Sector of
the Fourth Level."
Dosu Golan blinked, and his face went blank for a moment.
"You mean they're from outtime?" he demanded. "Are you sure?"
"I did two years on Fourth Level Kholghoor with the Paratime Police,
before I took this job," the man called Kiro Soran replied. "And
another thing. Those lash-marks were made with some kind of an
electric whip. Not these rawhide quirts the Caleras use."
It took the plantation manager all of five seconds to add that up. The
answer frightened him.
"Kirv, this is going to make a simply hideous uproar, all the way up
to Home Time Line main office," he said. "I don't know what I'm going
to do--"
"Well, I know what I have to do." The captain raised his voice, using
the local language: "Sergeant! Run to the guardhouse, and tell
Sergeant Adarada to mount up twenty of his men and take off after
those Caleras who sold us these slaves. They're headed down the road
toward the river. Tell him to bring them all back, and especially
their chief, Coru-hin-Irigod, and him I want alive and able to answer
questions. And then get the white-cloak lord Urado Alatena, and come
back here."
"Yes, captain." The guards were all Yarana people; they disliked
Caleras intensely. The sergeant threw a salute, turned, and ran.
"Next, we'll have to isolate these slaves," Kiro Soran said. "You'd
better make a full report to the Company as soon as possible. I'm
going to transpose to Police Terminal Time Line and make my report to
the Sector-Regional Subchief. Then--"
"Now wait a moment, Kirv," Dosu Golan protested. "After all, I'm the
manager, even if I am new here. It's up to me to make the decisions--"
Kiro Soran shook his head. "Sorry, Doth. Not this one," he said. "You
know the terms under which I was hired by the Company. I'm still a
field agent of the Paratime Police, and I'm reporting back on duty as
soon as I can transpose to Police Terminal. Look; here are a hundred
men and women who have been shifted from one time-line, on one
paratemporal sector of probability, to another. Why, the world from
which these people came doesn't even exist in this space-time
continuum. There's only one way they could have gotten here, and
that's the way we did--in a Ghaldron-Hesthor paratemporal
transposition field. You can carry it on from there as far as you
like, but the only thing it adds up to is a case for the Paratime
Police. You had better include in your report mention that I've
reverted to police status; my Company pay ought to be stopped as of
now. And until somebody who outranks me is sent here, I'm in complete
charge. Paratime Transposition Code, Section XVII, Article 238."
The plantation manager nodded. Kiro Soran knew how he must feel; he
laid a hand gently on the younger man's shoulder.
"You understand how it is, Doth; this is the only thing I can do."
"I understand, Kirv. Count on me for absolutely anything." He looked
at the brown-skinned slaves, and lines of horror and loathing appeared
around his mouth. "To think that some of our own people would do a
thing like this! I hope you can catch the devils! Are you transposing
out, now?"
"In a few minutes. While I'm gone, have the doctor look at those
whip-injuries. Those things could get infected. Fortunately, he's one
of our own people."
"Yes, of course. And I'll have these slaves isolated, and if Adarada
brings back Coru-hin-Irigod and his gang before you get back, I'll
have them locked up and waiting for you. I suppose you want to
narco-hypnotize and question the whole lot, slaves and slavers?"
The labor foreman, known locally as Urado Alatena, entered the
stockade.
"What's wrong, Kirv?" he asked.
The Paratime Police agent told him, briefly. The labor foreman
whistled, threw a quick glance at the nearest slaves, and nodded.
"I knew there was something funny about them," he said. "Doth, what a
simply beastly thing to happen, two days after you take charge here!"
"Not his fault," the Paratime Police agent said. "I'm the one the
Company'll be sore at, but I'd rather have them down on me rather than
old Tortha Karf. Well, sit on the lid till I get back," he told both
of them. "We'll need some kind of a story for the locals. Let's
see--Explain to the guards, in the hearing of some of the more
talkative slaves, that these slaves are from the Asian mainland, that
they are of a people friendly to our people, and that they were