Time Crime | Page 4

"I didn't think they had any money, either," Verkan Vall's wife, Hadron Dalla, said.
"They don't," Zara said. "It's all barter and trade. What are you and Vall going to use for a
visible means of support, while you're there?"
"Oh, I have my mandolin, and I've learned all the traditional Dwarma songs by
hypno-mech," Dalla said. "And Transtime Tours is fitting Vall out with a bag of tools;

he's going to do repair work and carpentry."
"Oh, good; you'll be welcome anywhere," Zara, the sculptress, said. "They're always glad
to entertain a singer, and for people who do the fine decorative work they do, they're the
most incompetent practical mechanics I've ever seen or heard of. You're going to travel
from village to village?"
"Yes. The cover-story is that we're lovers who have left our village in order not to make
Vall's former wife unhappy by our presence," Dalla said.
"Oh, good! That's entirely in the Dwarma romantic tradition," Bronnath Zara approved.
"Ordinarily, you know, they don't like to travel. They have a saying: 'Happy are the trees,
they abide in their own place; sad are the winds, forever they wander.' But that'll be a fine
explanation."
Thalvan Dras, the big man with the black beard and the long red coat and cloth-of-gold
sash who lounged in the host's seat, laughed.
"I can just see Vall mending pots, and Dalla playing that mandolin and singing," he said.
"At least, you'll be getting away from police work. I don't suppose they have anything
like police on the Dwarma Sector?"
"Oh, no; they don't even have any such concept," Bronnath Zara said. "When somebody
does something wrong, his neighbors all come and talk to him about it till he gets
ashamed, then they all forgive him and have a feast. They're lovely people, so kind and
gentle. But you'll get awfully tired of them in about a month. They have absolutely no
respect for anybody's privacy. In fact, it seems slightly indecent to them for anybody to
want privacy."
One of Thalvan Dras' human servants came into the room, coughed apologetically, and
said:
"A visiphone-call for His Valor, the Mavrad of Nerros."
Vall went on nibbling ham and wine sauce; the servant repeated the announcement a
trifle more loudly.
[Illustration:]
"Vall, you're being paged!" Thalvan Dras told him, with a touch of impatience.
Verkan Vall looked blank for an instant, then grinned. It had been so long since he had
even bothered to think about that antiquated title of nobility--
"Vall's probably forgotten that he has a title," a girl across the table, wearing an almost
transparent gown and nothing else, laughed.
"That's something the Mavrad of Mnirna and Thalvabar never forgets," Jandar Jard

drawled, with what, in a woman, would have been cattishness.
Thalvan Dras gave him a hastily repressed look of venomous anger, then said something,
more to Verkan Vall than to Jandar Jard, about titles of nobility being the marks of social
position and responsibility which their bearers should never forget. That jab, Vall thought,
following the servant out of the room, had been a mistake on Jard's part. A music-drama,
for which he had designed the settings, was due to open here in Dhergabar in another ten
days. Thalvan Dras would cherish spite, and a word from the Mavrad of Mnirna and
Thalvabar would set a dozen critics to disparaging Jandar's work. On the other hand,
maybe it had been smart of Jandar Jard to antagonize Thalvan Dras; for every critic who
bowed slavishly to the wealthy nobleman, there were at least two more who detested him
unutterably, and they would rush to Jandar Jard's defense, and in the ensuing uproar, the
settings would get more publicity than the drama itself.
* * * * *
In the visiphone booth, Vall found a girl in a green blouse, with the Paratime Police
insigne on her shoulder, looking out of the screen. The wall behind her was pale green
striped in gold and black.
"Hello, Eldra," he greeted her.
"Hello, Chief's Assistant: I'm sorry to bother you, but the Chief wants to talk to you. Just
a moment, please."
The screen exploded into a kaleidoscopic flash of lights and colors, then cleared again.
This time, a man looked out of it. He was well into middle age; close to his three
hundredth year. His hair, a uniform iron-gray, was beginning to thin in front, and he was
acquiring the beginnings of a double chin. His name was Tortha Karf, and he was Chief
of Paratime Police, and Verkan Vall's superior.
"Hello, Vall. Glad I was able to locate you. When are you and Dalla leaving?"
"As soon as we can get away from this luncheon, here. Oh, say an hour. We're taking a
rocket to Zarabar, and transposing from there