Time Crime
"We will not harm you," one of the psychists told them. "Here; here is
medicine for your hurts. At first, it will sting, as good medicines
will, but soon it will take away all pain. And here is wine for you to
drink."
A couple of detectives approached, making a great show of pouring wine
and applying ointment; under cover of the medication, they jabbed each
slave with a hypodermic needle, and then guided them to seats at the
four tables. Vall and Dalla went over and stood behind one of the
psychists, who had a small flashlight in his hand.
"Now, rest for a while," the psychist was saying. "Rest and let the
good medicine do its work. You are tired and sleepy. Look at this
magic light, which brings comfort to the troubled. Look at the light.
Look ... at ... the ... light."
They moved to the next table.
"Did you have hand in the fighting?"
"No, lord. We were peasant folk, not fighting people. We had no
weapons, nor weapon-skill. Those who fought were all killed; we held
up empty hands, and were spared to be captives of the Croutha."
"What happened to your master, the Lord Ghromdour, and to his lady?"
"One of the Croutha threw a hatchet and killed our master, and then
his lady drew a dagger and killed herself."
The psychist made a red mark on the card in front of him, and circled
the number on the back of the slave's hand with red indelible crayon.
Vall and Dalla went to the third table.
"They had the common weapons of the Croutha, lord, and they also had
the weapons of the Wizard Traders. Of these, they carried the long
weapons slung across their backs, and the short weapons thrust through
their belts."
A blue mark on the card; a blue circle on the back of the slave's
hand.
They listened to both versions of what had happened at the sack of the
Lord Ghromdour's estate, and the march into the captured city of
Jhirda, and the second march into the forest to the camp of the Wizard
Traders.
"The servants of the Wizard Traders did not appear until after the
Croutha had gone away; they wore different garb. They wore short
jackets, and trousers, and short boots, and they carried small weapons
on their belts--"
"They had whips of great cruelty that burned like fire; we were all
lashed with these whips, as you may see, lord--"
"The Croutha had bound us two and two, with neck-yokes; these the
servants of the Wizard Traders took off from us, and they chained us
together by tens, with the chains we still wore when we came to this
place--"
"They killed my child, my little Zhouzha!" the woman with the horribly
blistered back was wailing. "They tore her out of my arms, and one of
the servants of the Wizard Traders--may Khokhaat devour his soul
forever!--dashed out her brains. And when I struggled to save her. I
was thrown on the ground, and beaten with the fire-whips until I
fainted. Then I was dragged into the forest, along with the others who
were chained with me." She buried her head in her arms, sobbing
bitterly.
Dalla stepped forward, taking the flashlight from the interrogator
with one hand and lifting the woman's head with the other. She flashed
the light quickly in the woman's eyes.
"You will grieve no more for your child," she said. "Already, you are
forgetting what happened at the Wizard Traders' camp, and remembering
only that your child is safe from harm. Soon you will remember her
only as a dream of the child you hope to have, some day." She flashed
the light again, then handed it back to the psychist. "Now, tell us
what happened when you were taken into the forest; what did you see
there?"
The psychist nodded approvingly, made a note on the card, and
listened while the woman spoke. She had stopped sobbing, now, and her
voice was clear and cheerful.
Vall went over to the long table.
"Those slaves were still chained with the Wizard Traders' chains when
they were delivered here. Where are the chains?" he asked Skordran
Kirv.
"In the permanent conveyer room," Skordran Kirv said. "You can look at
them there; we didn't want to bring them in here, for fear these poor
devils would think we were going to chain them again. They're very
light, very strong; some kind of alloy steel. Files and power saws
only polish them; it takes fifteen seconds to cut a link with an
atomic torch. One long chain, and short lengths, fifteen inches long,
staggered, every three feet, with a single hinge-shackle for the
ankle. The shackles were riveted with soft wrought-iron rivets,
evidently made with some sort of a power riveting-machine. We cut them
easily with a cold chisel."
"They ought to be sent to Dhergabar Equivalent, Police Terminal, for
study of material and workmanship. Now, you mentioned some scheme you
had for capturing this conveyer that brings in the slaves for
Nebu-hin-Abenoz. What have you in mind?"
"We still have Coru-hin-Irigod and all his gang, under hypno. I'd
thought of giving them hypnotic conditioning, and sending them back to
Careba with orders to put out some kind of signal the next time
Nebu-hin-Abenoz starts out on a buying trip. We could have a couple of
men posted in the hills overlooking Careba, and they could send a
message-ball through to Police Terminal. Then, a party could be sent
with a mobile conveyer to ambush Nebu-hin-Abenoz on the way, and wipe
out his party. Our people could take their horses and clothing and go
on to take the conveyer by surprise."
"I'd suggest one change. Instead of relying on visual signals by the
hypno-conditioned Coru-hin-Irigod, send a couple of our men to Careba
with midget radios."
Skordran Kirv nodded. "Sure. We can condition Coru-hin-Irigod to
accept them as friends and vouch for them at Careba. Our boys can be
traders and slave buyers. Careba's a market town; traders are always
welcome. They can have firearms to sell--revolvers and repeating
rifles. Any Calera'll buy any firearm that's better than the one he's
carrying; they'll always buy revolvers and repeaters. We can get what
we want from Commercial Four-Oh-Seven; we can get riding and pack
horses here."
Vall nodded. "And the post overlooking or in radio range of Careba on
this time line, and another on PolTerm. For the ambush of
Nebu-hin-Abenoz's gang and the capture of the conveyer, use anything you
want to--sleep-gas, paralyzers, energy-weapons, antigrav-equipment,
anything. As far as regulations about using only equipment appropriate
to local culture-levels, forget them entirely. But take that conveyer
intact. You can locate the base time line from the settings of the
instrument panel, and that's what we want most of all."
Dalla and the police psychist, having finished with and dismissed
their subject, came over to the long table.
"... That poor creature," Dalla was saying. "What sort of fiends are
they?"
"If that made you sick, remember we've been listening to things like
that for the last eight hours. Some of the stories were even worse
than that one."
"Well, I'd like to use a heat-gun on the whole lot of them, turned
down to where it'd just fry them medium-rare," Dalla said. "And for
whoever's back of this, take him to Second Level Khiftan and sell him
to the priests of Fasif."
"Too bad you're not coming back from your vacation, instead of
starting out. Chief's Assistant Verkan," Skordran Kirv said. "This is
too big for me to handle alone, and I'd sooner work under you than
anybody else Chief Tortha sends in."
"Vall!" Dalla cried in indignation. "You're not going to just report
on this and then walk away from it, are you?"
"But, darling," Vall replied, in what he hoped was a convincing show
of surprise. "You don't want our vacation postponed again, do you? If
I get mixed up in this, there's no telling when I can get away, and by
the time I'm free, something may come up at Rhogom Institute that you
won't want to drop--"
"Vall, you know perfectly well that I wouldn't be happy for an instant
on the Dwarma Sector, thinking about this--"
"All right, then; let's forget about the vacation. You want to stay on
for a while and help me with this? It'll be a lot of hard work, but
we'll be together."
"Yes, of course. I want to do something to smash those devils. Vall,
if you'd heard some of the things they did to those poor people--"
"Well, I'll have to go back to PolTerm, as soon as I'm reasonably well
filled in on this, and report to Tortha Karf and tell him I've taken
charge. You can stay here and help with these interrogations; I'll be
back in about ten hours. Then, we can go to Kholghoor East India
SecReg HQ to talk to Ranthar Jard. We may be able to get something
that'll help us on that end--"
"You may be able to have your vacation before too long, Dr. Hadron,"
Skordran Kirv told her. "Once we capture one of their conveyers, the
instrument panel'll tell us what time line they're working from, and
then we'll have them."
"There's an Indo-Turanian Sector parable about a snake charmer who
thought he was picking up his snake and found that he had hold of an
elephant's tail," Vall said. "That might be a good thing to bear in
mind, till we find out just what we have picked up."
* * * * *
Coming down a hallway on the hundred and seventh floor of the
Management wing of the Paratime Building, Yandar Yadd paused to
admire, in the green mirror of the glassoid wall, the jaunty angle of
his silver-feathered cap, the fit of his short jacket, and the way his
weapon hung at his side. This last was not instantly recognizable as a
weapon; it looked more like a portable radio, which indeed it was. It
was, none the less, a potent weapon. One flick of his finger could
connect that radio with one at Tri-Planet News Service, and within the
hour anything he said into it would be heard by all Terra, Mars and
Venus. In consequence, there existed around the Paratime Building a
marked and understandable reluctance to antagonize Yandar Yadd.
He glanced at his watch. It was twenty minutes short of 1000, when he
had an appointment with Baltan Vrath, the comptroller general.
Glancing about, he saw that he was directly in front of the doorway of
the Outtime Claims Bureau, and he strolled in, walking through the
waiting room and into the claims-presentation office. At once, he
stiffened like a bird dog at point.
Sphabron Larv, one of his young legmen, was in altercation across the
counter-desk with Varkar Klav, the Deputy Claims Agent on duty at the
time. Varkar was trying to be icily dignified; Sphabron Larv's black
hair was in disarray and his face was suffused with anger. He was
pounding with his fist on the plastic counter-top.
"You have to!" he was yelling in the older man's face. "That's a
public document, and I have a right to see it. You want me to go into
Tribunes' Court and get an order? If I do, there'll be a Question in
Council about why I had to, before the day's out!"
"What's the matter, Larv?" Yandar Yadd asked lazily. "He trying to
hold something out on you?"
Sphabron Larv turned; his eyes lit happily when he saw his boss, and
then his anger returned.
"I want to see a copy of an indemnity claim that was filed this
morning," he said. "Varkar, here, won't show it to me. What does he
think this is, a Fourth Level dictatorship?"
"What kind of a claim, now?" Yandar Yadd addressed Larv, ignoring
Varkar Klav.
"Consolidated Outtime Foodstuffs--one of the Thalvan Interests
companies--just claimed forty thousand P.E.U. for a hundred slaves
bought by one of their plantation managers on Third Level Esaron from
a local slave dealer. The Paratime Police impounded the slaves for
narco-hypnotic interrogation, and then transposed the lot of them to
Police Terminal."
Yandar Yadd still held his affectation of sleepy indolence.