Time Crime
the aircar which had brought the assassins.
"Barth!" Vall called. "Have you a hypodermic and a sleep-drug ampoule?
Well, give this boy a shot; he's only impact-stunned. Be careful of
him; he's important." He glanced around the landing-stage. "Fact is,
he's all we have to show for this business."
Then he stooped to help Dalla gather her things, picking up a few of
them--a lighter, a tiny crystal perfume flask, miraculously unbroken,
a face-powder box which had sprung open and spilled half its contents.
He handed them to her, while Sothran Barth bent over the prisoner and
gave him an injection, then went to the body of the other
pseudo-policeman, forcing open his mouth. In his cheek, still
unbroken, was a second capsule, which he added to the first. Tortha
Karf was watching him.
"Same gang that killed that Carera slaver on Esaron Sector?" he asked.
"Of course, exactly the same general procedure. Let's have a look at
the other one."
The man in Proletarian dress must have had his capsule between his
molars when he had been killed; it was broken, and there was a
brownish discoloration and chemical odor in his mouth.
"Second time we've had a witness killed off under our noses," Tortha
Karf said. "We're going to have to smarten up in a hurry."
"Here's one of us who doesn't have to, much," Vall said, nodding
toward Dalla. "She knocked a needler out of one man's hand, and we
took him alive. The Force owes her a new shoulder-bag: she spoiled
that one using it for a club."
"Best shoulder-bag we can find you, Dalla," Tortha Karf promised.
"You're promoted, herewith, to Special Chief's Assistant's Special
Assistant--You know, this Organization murder-section is good; they
could kill anybody. It won't be long before they assign a squad to us.
Blast it, I don't want to have to go around bodyguarded like a Fourth
Level dictator, but--"
A detective came out of the control room and approached.
"Screen call for you, sir," he told Tortha Karf. "One of the news
services wants a comment on a story they've just picked up that we've
illegally arrested Councilman Salgath and are holding him
incommunicado and searching his apartment."
"That's the Organization," Vall said. "They don't know how their boys
made out; they're hoping we'll tell them."
"No comment," Tortha Karf said. "Call the girl on my switchboard and
tell her to answer any other news-service calls. We have nothing to
say at this time, but there will be a public statement at ... at
2330," he decided after a glance at his watch. "That'll give us time
to agree on a publicity line to adopt. Lieutenant Sothran! Take charge
up here. Get all these bodies out of sight somewhere, including those
of Councilman Salgath and Detective Malthor. Don't let anybody talk
about this; put a blackout on the whole story. Vall, you and Dalla and
... oh, you, over there; take the prisoner down to my office. Sothran,
any reports from any of the cars that were chasing that fake police
car?"
Verkan Vall and Dalla were sitting behind Tortha Karf's desk; Vall was
issuing orders over the intercom and talking to the detectives who had
remained at Salgath Trod's apartment by visiscreen; Dalla was sorting
over the things she had spilled when her bag had burst. They both
looked up as Tortha Karf came in and joined them.
"The prisoner's still under the drug," the Chief said. "He'll be out
for a couple of hours; the psych-techs want to let him come out of it
naturally and sleep naturally for a while before they give him a
hypno. He's not a ServSec Prole; uncircumcised, never had any
syntho-enzyme shots or immunizations, and none of the longevity
operations or grafts. Same thing for the two stiffs. And no identity
records on any of the three."
"The men at Salgath's apartment say that his housekeeper and his two
servants checked out through the house conveyer for ServSec
One-Six-Five, at about 1830," Vall said. "There's a Prole
entertainment center on that time line. I suppose Salgath gave them
the evening off before he called you."
Tortha Karf nodded. "I suppose you ordered them picked up. The news
services are going wild about this. I had to make a preliminary
statement, to the effect that Salgath Trod was not arrested, came to
Headquarters of his own volition, and is under no restraint whatever."
"Except, of course, a slight case of rigor mortis," Dalla added. "Did
you mention that, Chief?"
"No, I didn't." Tortha Karf looked as though he had quinine in his
mouth. "Vall, how in blazes are we going to handle this?"
"We ought to keep Salgath's death hushed up, as long as we can," Vall
said. "The Organization doesn't know positively what happened here;
that's why they're handing out tips to the news services. Let's try to
make them believe he's still alive and talking."
"How can we do it?"
"There ought to be somebody on the Force close enough to Salgath
Trod's anthropometric specifications that our cosmeticians could work
him over into a passable impersonation. Our story is that Salgath is
on PolTerm, undergoing narco-hypnosis. We will produce an audio-visual
of him as soon as he is out of narco-hyp. That will give us time to
fix up an impersonator; We'll need a lot of sound-recordings of
Salgath Trod's voice, of course--"
"I'll take care of the Home Time Line end of it; as soon as we get you
an impersonator, you go to work with him. Now, let's see whom we can
depend on to help us with this. Lovranth Rolk, of course; Home Time
Line section of the Paratime Code Enforcement Division. And--"
* * * * *
Verkan Vall and Dalla and Tortha Karf and four or five others looked
across the desk and to the end of the room as the telecast screen
broke into a shifting light-pattern and then cleared. The face of the
announcer appeared; a young woman.
"And now, we bring you the statement which Chief Tortha of the
Paratime Police has promised for this time. This portion of the
program was audio-visually recorded at Paratime Police Headquarters
earlier this evening."
Tortha Karf's face appeared on the screen. His voice began an
announcement of how Executive Councilman Salgath Trod had called him
by visiphone, admitting to complicity in the recently-discovered
paratemporal slave-trade.
"Here is a recording of Councilman Salgath's call to me from his
apartment to my office at 1945 this evening."
The screen-image shattered into light-shards and rebuilt itself:
Salgath Trod, at his desk in the library of his apartment, the
brandy-goblet and the needler within reach, appeared. He began to
speak: from time to time the voice of Tortha Karf interrupted,
questioning or prompting him.
"You understand that this confession renders you liable to
psycho-rehabilitation?" Tortha Karf asked.
Yes, Councilman Salgath understood that.
"And you agree to come voluntarily to Paratime Police Headquarters,
and you will voluntarily undergo narco-hypnotic interrogation?"
Yes, Salgath Trod agreed to that.
"I am now terminating the playback of Councilman Salgath's call to
me," Tortha Karf said, re-appearing on the screen. "At this point
Councilman Salgath began making a statement about his criminal
activities, which we have on record. Because he named a number of his
criminal associates, whom we have no intention of warning, this
portion of Councilman Salgath's call cannot at this time be made
public. We have no intention of having any of these suspects escape,
or of giving their associates an opportunity to murder them to prevent
their furnishing us with additional information. Incidentally, there
was an attempt, made on the landing stage of Paratime Police
Headquarters, to murder Councilman Salgath, when he was brought here
guarded by Paratime Police officers--"
He went on to give a colorful and, as far as possible, truthful,
account of the attack by the two pseudo-policemen and their
pseudo-prisoner. As he told it, however, all three had been killed
before they could accomplish their purpose, one of them by Salgath
Trod himself.
The image of Tortha Karf was replaced by a view of the three assassins
lying on the landing stage. They all looked dead, even the one who
wasn't; there was nothing to indicate that he was merely drugged.
Then, one after another, their faces were shown in closeup, while
Tortha Karf asked for close attention and memorization.
"We believe that these men were Fifth Level Proles; we think that they
were under hypnotic influence or obeying posthypnotic commands when
they made their suicidal attack. If any of you have ever seen any of
these men before, it is your duty to inform the Paratime Police."
* * * * *
That ended it. Tortha Karf pressed a button in front of him and the
screen went dark. The spectators relaxed.
"Well! Nothing like being sincere with the public, is there?" Della
commented. "I'll remember this the next time I tune in a Management
public statement."
"In about five minutes," one of the bureau-chiefs, said, "all hell is
going to break loose. I think the whole thing is crazy!"
"I hope you have somebody who can give a convincing impersonation,"
Lovranth Rolk said.
"Yes. A field agent named Kostran Galth," Tortha Karf said. "We ran
the personal description cards for the whole Force through the
machine; Kostran checked to within one-twentieth of one per cent; he's
on Police Terminal, now, coming by rocket from Ravvanan Equivalent. We
ought to have the whole thing ready for telecast by 1730 tomorrow."
"He can't learn to imitate Salgath's voice convincingly in that time,
with all the work the cosmeticians'll have to be doing on him," Dalla
said.
"Make up a tape of Salgath's own voice, out of that pile of recordings
we got at his apartment, and what we can get out of the news file."
Vall said. "We have phoneticists who can split syllables and splice
them together. Kostran will deliver his speech in dumb-show, and we'll
dub the sound in and telecast them as one. I've messaged PolTerm to
get to work on that; they can start as soon as we have the speech
written."
"The more it succeeds now, the worse the blow-up will be when we
finally have to admit that Salgath was killed here tonight," the Chief
Inter-officer Cooerdinator, Zostha Olv said. "We'd better have
something to show the public to justify that."
"Yes, we had," Tortha Karf agreed. "Vall, how about the Kholghoor
Sector operation. How far's Ranthar Jard gotten toward locating one of
those Wizard Trader time lines?"
"Not very far," Vall admitted. "He has it pinned down to the
sub-sector, but the belt seems to be one we haven't any information at
all for. Never been any legitimate penetration by paratimers. He has
his own hagiologists, and a couple borrowed from Outtime Religious
Institute; they've gotten everything the slaves can give them on that.
About the only thing to do is start random observation with
boomerang-balls."
"Over about a hundred thousand time lines," Zostha Olv scoffed. He was
an old man, even for his long-lived race; he had a thin nose and a
narrow, bitter, mouth. "And what will he look for?"
"Croutha with guns." Tortha Karf told him, then turned to Vall. "Can't
he narrow it more than that? What have his experts been getting out of
those slaves?"
"That I don't know, to date." Vall looked at the clock. "I'll find
out, though; I'll transpose to Police Terminal and call him up. And
Skordran Kirv. No. Vulthor Tharn; it'd hurt the old fellow's feelings
if I by-passed him and went to one of his subordinates. Half an hour
each way, and at most another hour talking to Ranthar and Vulthor;
there won't be anything doing here for two hours." He rose. "See you
when I get back."
Dalla had turned on the telescreen again; after tuning out a dance