to thelegality of anything you want to do outtime, go to the JudicialSection of the Paratime Commission and get an opinion on it. That'swhere you made your whole mistake. You didn't find out just how far itwas allowable for you to go."
He turned to Stranor Sleth again. "Well, that's the background, then.Now tell me about what happened yesterday at Zurb."
"Well, a week ago, Kurchuk came out with this decree closing ourtemple at Zurb and ordering his subjects to perform worship and makemoney offerings to Muz-Azin. The Zurb temple isn't a mask for a mine:Zurb's too far south for the uranium deposits. It's just a center forpropaganda and that sort of thing. But they have a House of Yat-Zar,and a conveyer, and most of the upper-priests are paratimers. Well,our man there, Tammand Drav, alias Khoram, defied the king's order, soKurchuk sent a company of Chuldun archers to close the temple andarrest the priests. Tammand Drav got all his people who were in thetemple at the time into the House of Yat-Zar and transposed them backto the First Level. He had orders"--Stranor Sleth looked meaningly atBrannad Klav--"not to resist with energy-weapons or even ultrasonicparalyzers. And while we're on the subject of letting the local yokelssee too much, about fifteen of the under-priests he took to the FirstLevel were Hulgun natives."
"Nothing wrong about that: they'll get memory-obliteration andpseudo-memory treatment," Verkan Vall said. "But he should have beenallowed to needle about a dozen of those Chulduns. Teach the beggarsto respect Yat-Zar in the future. Now, how about the six priests whowere outside the temple at the time? All but one were paratimers.We'll have to find out about them, and get them out of Zurb."
"That'll take some doing," Stranor Sleth said. "And it'll have to bedone before sunset tomorrow. They are all in the dungeon of the palacecitadel, and Kurchuk is going to give them to the priests of Muz-Azinto be sacrificed tomorrow evening."
"How'd you learn that?" Verkan Vall asked.
"Oh, we have a man in Zurb, not connected with the temple," StranorSleth said. "Name's Crannar Jurth; calls himself Kranjur, locally. Hehas a swordmaker's shop, employs about a dozen native journeymen andapprentices who hammer out the common blades he sells in the openmarket. Then, he imports a few high-class alloy-steel blades from theFirst Level, that'll cut through this local low-carbon armor likecheese. Fits them with locally-made hilts and sells them atunbelievable prices to the nobility. He's Swordsmith to the King;picks up all the inside palace dope. Of course, he was among the firstto accept the New Gospel and go over to Muz-Azin. He has a secret roomunder his shop, with his conveyer and a radio.
"What happened was this: These six priests were at a consecrationceremony at a rabbit-ranch outside the city, and they didn't knowabout the raid on the temple. On their way back, they were surroundedby Chuldun archers and taken prisoner. They had no weapons but theirsacrificial knives." He threw another dirty look at Brannad Klav. "Sothey're due to go up on the triangles at sunset tomorrow."
"We'll have to get them out before then," Verkan Vall stated. "They'reour people, and we can't let them down; even the native is under ourprotection, whether he knows it or not. And in the second place, ifthose priests are sacrificed to Muz-Azin," he told Brannad Klav, "youcan shut down everything on this time-line, pull out or disintegrateyour installations, and fill in your mine-tunnels. Yat-Zar will bethrough on this time-line, and you'll be through along with him. Andconsidering that your fissionables franchise for this sector comes upfor renewal next year, your company will be through in this paratimearea."
"You believe that would happen?" Brannad Klav asked anxiously.
"I know it will, because I'll put through a recommendation to thateffect, if those six men are tortured to death tomorrow," Verkan Vallreplied. "And in the fifty years that I've been in the PoliceDepartment, I've only heard of five such recommendations being ignoredby the commission. You know, Fourth Level Mineral Products Syndicateis after your franchise. Ordinarily, they wouldn't have a chance ofgetting it, but with this, maybe they will, even without myrecommendation. This was all your fault, for ignoring Stranor Sleth'sproposal and for denying those men the right to carry energy weapons."
"Well, we were only trying to stay inside the Paratime Code," BrannadKlav pleaded. "If it isn't too late, now, you can count on me forevery co-operation." He fiddled with some papers on the desk. "What doyou want me to do to help?"
"I'll tell you that in a minute." Verkan Vall walked to the wall andlooked at the map, then returned to Stranor Sleth's desk. "How aboutthese dungeons?" he asked. "How are they located, and how can we getin to them?"
"I'm afraid we can't," Stranor Sleth told him. "Not without fightingour way in. They're under the palace citadel, a hundred feet belowground. They're spatially co-existent with the heavy water barriersaround one of our company's plutonium piles on the First Level, andbelow surface on any unoccupied time-line I know of, so we can'ttranspose in to them. This palace is really a walled city inside acity. Here, I'll show you."
Going around the desk, he sat down and, after looking in theindex-screen, punched a combination on the keyboard. A picture,projected from the microfilm-bank, appeared on the view-screen. It wasan air-view of the city of Zurb--taken, the high priest explained, byinfrared light from an airboat over the city at night. It showed acity of an entirely pre-mechanical civilization, with narrow streets,lined on either side by low one and two story buildings. Althoughthere would be considerable snow in winter, the roofs were usuallyflat, probably massive stone slabs supported by pillars within. Evenin the poorer sections, this was true except for the very meanesthouses and out-buildings, which were thatched. Here and there, somehuge pile of masonry would rear itself above its lower neighbors, and,where the streets were wider, occasional groups of large buildingswould be surrounded by battlemented walls. Stranor Sleth indicated oneof the larger of these.
"Here's the palace," he said. "And here's the temple of Yat-Zar, abouthalf a mile away." He touched a large building, occupying an entireblock; between it and the palace was a block-wide park, with lawns andtrees on either side of a wide roadway connecting the two.
"Now, here's a detailed view of the palace." He punched anothercombination; the view of the City was replaced by one, taken fromdirectly overhead, of the walled palace area. "Here's the main gate,in front, at the end of the road from the temple," he pointed out."Over here, on the left, are the slaves' quarters and the stables andworkshops and store houses and so on. Over here, on the other side,are the nobles' quarters. And this,"--he indicated a toweringstructure at the rear of the walled enclosure--"is the citadel and theroyal dwelling. Audience hall on this side; harem over here on thisside. A wide stone platform, about fifteen feet high, runs completelyacross the front of the citadel, from the audience hall to the harem.Since this picture was taken, the new temple of Muz-Azin was builtright about here." He indicated that it extended out from the audiencehall into the central courtyard. "And out here on the platform,they've put up about a dozen of these triangles, about twelve feethigh, on which the sacrificial victims are whipped to death."
"Yes. About the only way we could get down to the dungeons would be tomake an airdrop onto the citadel roof and fight our way down withneedlers and blasters, and I'm not willing to do that as long asthere's any other way," Verkan Vall said. "We'd lose men, even withneedlers against bows, and there's a chance that some of our equipmentmight be lost in the melee and fall into outtime hands. You say thissacrifice comes off tomorrow at sunset?"
"That would be about actual sunset plus or minus an hour; these peoplearen't astronomers, they don't even have good sundials, and it mightbe a cloudy day," Stranor Sleth said. "There will be a big idol ofMuz-Azin on a cart, set about here." He pointed. "After the sacrifice,it is to be dragged down this road, outside, to the temple of Yat-Zar,and set up there. The temple is now occupied by about twenty Chuldunmercenaries and five or six priests of Muz-Azin. They haven't, ofcourse, got into the House of Yat-Zar; the door's of impervium steel,about six inches thick, with a plating of collapsed nickel under thegilding. It would take a couple
of hours to cut through it with ourbest atomic torch; there isn't a tool on this time-line that couldeven scratch it. And the insides of the walls are lined with the samething."
"Do you think our people have been tortured, yet?" Verkan Vall asked.
"No." Stranor Sleth was positive. "They'll be fairly well treated,until the sacrifice. The idea's to make them last as long as possibleon the