epidemic ended, it had almost depopulated this planet.Since the survivors knew nothing about germs, they blamed it on theanger of the gods--the old story of recourse to supernaturalism in theabsence of a known explanation--and a fanatically anti-scientific cultgot control. Of course, space travel was taboo; so was nuclear andeven electric power. For some reason, steam power and gunpowderweren't offensive to the gods. They went back to a low-ordersteam-power, black-powder, culture, and haven't gotten beyond that tothis day. The relatively civilized regions are on the east coast ofAsia and the west coast of North America; civilized race more or lessCaucasian. Political organization just barely above the triballevel--thousands of petty kingdoms and republics and principalitiesand feudal holdings and robbers' roosts. The principal industries arebrigandage, piracy, slave-raiding, cattle-rustling and intercommunalwarfare. They have a few ramshackle steam railways, and somesteamboats on the rivers. We sell them coal and manufactured goods,mostly in exchange for foodstuffs and tobacco. Consolidated OuttimeFoodstuffs has the sector franchise. That's one of the companiesThalvan Dras gets his money from."
They had run down through the civilized Second and Third Levels andwere leaving the Fourth behind and entering the Fifth, existing in theprobability of a world without human population. Once in a while,around them, they caught brief flashes of buildings and rocketportsand spaceports and landing stages, as the conveyer took them throughnarrow paratime belts on which their own civilization had establishedoutposts--Fifth Level Commercial, Fifth Level Passenger, IndustrialSector, Service Sector.
Finally the conveyer dome around them shimmered into visibility andmaterialized; when they emerged, there were policemen in greenuniforms who entered to search the dome with drawn needlers to makesure they had picked up nothing dangerous on the way. The room outsidewas similar to the one they had left on Home Time Line, even to theshifting, noisy crowd in incongruously-mixed costumes.
* * * * *
The rocketport was a ten minutes' trip by aircar from the conveyerhead; when they boarded the stubby-winged strato-rocket, Vall saw thattwo of the passenger-seats had square metal cabinets bolted in placebehind them and blue plastic helmets on swinging arms mounted abovethem.
"Everything's set up," the pilot told them. "Dr. Hadron, you sit onthe left; that cabinet's loaded with language tape for Acalan. Yoursis loaded with a tape of Kharanda; that's the Fourth Level Kholghoorlanguage you wanted, Chief's Assistant. Shall I help you get fixed inyour seats?"
"Yes, if you please. Here, Dalla, I'll fix that for you."
Dalla was already asleep when the pilot was adjusting his helmet andgiving him his injection. He never felt the rocket tilt into firingposition, and while he slept, the Kharands language, with all itsvocabulary and grammar, became part of his subconscious knowledge,needing only the mental pronunciation of a trigger-symbol to bring itinto consciousness. The pilot was already unfastening and raising hishelmet when he opened his eyes. Dalla, beside him, was sipping a cupof spiced wine.
On the landing stage of the Sector-Regional Headquarters at NovilanEquivalent, four or five people were waiting for them. Vall recognizedthe subchief, Vulthor Tharn, who introduced another man, in ridingboots and a white cloak, as Skordran Kirv. Vall clasped hands with himwarmly.
"Good work, Agent Skordran. You got onto this promptly."
"I tried to, sir. Do you want the dope now? We have half an hour'sflight to our spatial equivalent, and another half hour intransposition."
"Give it to me on the way," he said, and turned to Vulthor Tharn."Our Esaron costumes ready?"
"Yes. Over there in the control tower. We have a temporary conveyerhead set up about two hundred miles south of here, which will take youstraight through to the plantation."
"Suppose you change now, Dalla," he said. "Subchief, I'd like a wordwith you privately."
He and Vulthor Tharn excused themselves and walked over to the edge ofthe landing stage. The SecReg Subchief was outwardly composed, butVall sensed that he was worried and embarrassed.
"Now, what's been done since you got Agent Skordran's report?" Vallasked.
"Well, sir, it seems that this is more serious than we hadanticipated. Field Agent Skordran, who will give you the particulars,says that there is every indication that a large and well-organizedgang of paratemporal criminals, our own people, are at work. He saysthat he's found evidence of activities on Fourth Level Kholghoor thatdon't agree with any information we have about conditions on thatsector."
"Beside transmitting Agent Skordran's report to Dhergabar through therobot report-system, what have you done about it?"
"I confirmed Agent Skordran in charge of the local investigation, andgave him two detectives and a psychist, sir. As soon as we couldfurnish hypno-mech indoctrination in Kharanda to other psychists, Isent them along. He now has four of them, and eight detectives. Bythat time, we had a conveyer head right at this Consolidated OuttimeFoodstuffs plantation."
"Why didn't you just borrow psychists from SecReg for Kholghoor,Eastern India?" Vall asked. "Subchief Ranthar would have loaned you afew."
"Oh, I couldn't call on another SecReg for men without higher-echelonauthorization. Especially not from another Sector Organization, evenanother Level Authority," Vulthor Tharn said. "Beside, it would havetaken longer to bring them here than hypno-mech our own personnel."
He was right about the second point. Vall agreed mentally; however,his real reason was procedural.
"Did you alert Ranthar Jard to what was going on in his SecReg?" heasked.
"Gracious, no!" Vulthor Tharn was scandalized. "I have no authority totell people of equal echelon in other Sector and Level organizationswhat to do. I put my report through regular channels; it wasn't myplace to go outside my own jurisdiction."
And his report had crawled through channels for fourteen hours, Vallthought.
"Well, on my authority, and in the name of Chief Tortha, you messageRanthar Jard at once; send him every scrap of information you have onthe subject, and forward additional information as it comes in toyou. I doubt he'll find anything on any time-line that's beingexploited by any legitimate paratimers. This gang probably workexclusively on unpenetrated time-lines; this business Skordran Kirvcame across was a bad blunder on some underling's part." He saw Dallaemerge from the control tower in breeches and boots and a white cloak,buckling on a heavy revolver. "I'll go change, now; you get busycalling Ranthar Jard. I'll see you when I get back."
* * * * *
"Are you taking over, Chief's Assistant?" Skordran Kirv asked, as theaircar lifted from the landing stage.
"Not at all. My wife and I are starting on our vacation, as soon as Ifind out what's been happening here, and report to Chief Tortha. Didyour native troopers catch those slavers?"
"Yes, they got them yesterday afternoon; we've had them ever since. Doyou want the whole thing just as it happened, Assistant Verkan, orjust a condensation?"
"Give me what you think it indicates, remembering that you're probablytrying to analyze a large situation from a very small sample."
"It's big, all right," Skordran Kirv said. "This gang can't numberless than a hundred men, maybe several hundred. They must have atleast two two-hundred-foot conveyers and several small ones, and baseson what sounds like some Fifth Level Time line, and at least one airfreighter of around five thousand tons. They are operating on a numberof Kholghoor and Esaron time lines."
Verkan Vall nodded. "I didn't think it was any petty larceny," hesaid.
"Wait till you hear the rest of it. On the Kholghoor Sector, this gangis known as the Wizard Traders; we've been using that as a conveniencelabel. They pose as sorcerers--black robes and hood-masks covered withluminous symbols, voice-amplifiers, cold-light auras, energy-weapons,mechanical magic tricks, that sort of thing. They have all the Crouthascared witless. Their procedure is to establish camps in the forestnear recently conquered Kharanda cities; then they appear to theCroutha, impress them with their magical pow
ers, and trademanufactured goods for Kharanda captives. They mainly trade firearms,apparently some kind of flintlocks, and powder."
Then they were confining their operations to unpenetrated time lines;there had been no reports of firearms in the hands of the Crouthainvaders.
"After they buy a batch of slaves," Skordran Kirv continued, "theytranspose them to this presumably Fifth Level base, where they haveconcentration camps. The slaves we questioned had been airlifted toNorth America, where there's another concentration camp, and fromthere transposed to this Esaron Sector time line where I found them.They say that there were at least two to three thousand slaves