Time Crime | Page 5

to Passenger Terminal Sixteen, and from
there to the Dwarma Sector."
"Well, Vall, I hate to bother you like this," Tortha Karf said, "but I wish you'd stop by
Headquarters on your way to the rocketport. Something's come up--it may be a very nasty
business--and I'd like to talk to you about it."
"Well, Chief, let me remind you that this vacation, which I've had to postpone four times
already, has been overdue for four years," Vall said.
"Yes, Vall, I know. You've been working very hard, and you and Dalla are entitled to a
little time together. I just want you to look into something, before you leave."
"It'll have to take some fast looking. Our rocket blasts off in two hours."

"It may take a little longer; if it does, you and Dalla can transpose to Police Terminal and
take a rocket for Zarabar Equivalent, and transpose from there to Passenger Sixteen. It
would save time if you brought Dalla with you to Headquarters."
"Dalla won't like this," Vall understated.
"No. I'm afraid not." Tortha Karf looked around apprehensively, as though estimating the
damage an enraged Hadron Dalla could do to his office furnishings. "Well, try to get here
as soon as you can."
* * * * *
Thalvan Dras was holding forth, when Vall returned, on one of his favorite
preoccupations.
"... Reason I'm taking such an especially active interest in this year's Arts Exhibitions;
I've become disturbed at the extent to which so many of our artists have been content to
derive their motifs, even their techniques, from outtime art." He was using his vocowriter,
rather than his conversational, voice. "I yield to no one in my appreciation of outtime
art--you all know how devotedly I collect objects of art from all over paratime--but our
own artists should endeavor to express their artistic values in our own artistic idioms."
Vall bent over his wife's shoulder.
"We have to leave, right away," he whispered.
"But our rocket doesn't blast off for two hours--"
Thalvan Dras had stopped talking and was looking at them in annoyance.
"I have to go to Headquarters before we leave. It'll save time if you come along."
"Oh, no, Vall!" She looked at him in consternation. "Was that Tortha Karf, calling?" She
replaced her plate on the table and got to her feet.
"I'm dreadfully sorry, Dras," he addressed their host. "I just had a call from Tortha Karf.
A few minor details that must be cleared up, before I leave Home Time Line. If you'll
accept our thanks for a wonderful luncheon--"
"Why, certainly, Vall. Brogoth, will you call--" He gave a slight chuckle. "I'm so used to
having Brogoth Zaln at my elbow that I'd forgotten he wasn't here. Wait. I'll call one of
the servants to have a car for you."
"Don't bother; we'll take an aircab," Vall told him.
"But you simply can't take a public cab!" The black-bearded nobleman was shocked at
such an obscene idea. "I will have a car ready for you in a few minutes."
"Sorry, Dras; we have to hurry. We'll get a cab on the roof. Good-by, everybody; sorry to

have to break away like this. See you all when we get back."
* * * * *
Hadron Dalla watched dejectedly as the green crags and escarpments of the Paratime
Building loomed above the city in front of them, and began slipping under the aircab. She
felt like a prisoner recaptured at the moment when attempted escape was about to
succeed.
"I knew it," she said. "I knew he'd find something. He's trying to break things up between
us, the way he did twenty years ago.'"
Vall crushed out his cigarette and said nothing. That hadn't been true, and she knew it as
well as he did. There had been many other factors involved in the disintegration of their
previous marriage, most of them of her own contribution. But that had been twenty years
ago, she told herself. This time it would be different, if only--
"Really, Vall, he's never liked me," she went on. "He's jealous of me, I think. You're to be
his successor, when he retires, and he thinks I'm not a good influence--"
"Oh, rubbish, Dalla! The Chief has always liked you," Vall replied. "If he didn't, do you
think he'd always be inviting us to that farm of his, on Fifth Level Sicily? It's just that this
job of ours has no end; something's always turning up, outtime."
The music that the cab had been playing died away. "Paratime Building, just below," it
said, in a light feminine voice. "Which landing stage, please?" Vall leaned forward and
punched at the buttons in front of him. Something in the cab's electronic brain gave a
rapid series of clicks as