Time Crime | Page 9

Service Sector.
Finally the conveyer dome around them shimmered into visibility and materialized; when
they emerged, there were policemen in green uniforms who entered to search the dome
with drawn needlers to make sure they had picked up nothing dangerous on the way. The
room outside was similar to the one they had left on Home Time Line, even to the
shifting, noisy crowd in incongruously-mixed costumes.
* * * * *
The rocketport was a ten minutes' trip by aircar from the conveyer head; when they
boarded the stubby-winged strato-rocket, Vall saw that two of the passenger-seats had
square metal cabinets bolted in place behind them and blue plastic helmets on swinging
arms mounted above them.
"Everything's set up," the pilot told them. "Dr. Hadron, you sit on the left; that cabinet's
loaded with language tape for Acalan. Yours is loaded with a tape of Kharanda; that's the
Fourth Level Kholghoor language you wanted, Chief's Assistant. Shall I help you get
fixed in your seats?"
"Yes, if you please. Here, Dalla, I'll fix that for you."
Dalla was already asleep when the pilot was adjusting his helmet and giving him his
injection. He never felt the rocket tilt into firing position, and while he slept, the

Kharands language, with all its vocabulary and grammar, became part of his
subconscious knowledge, needing only the mental pronunciation of a trigger-symbol to
bring it into consciousness. The pilot was already unfastening and raising his helmet
when he opened his eyes. Dalla, beside him, was sipping a cup of spiced wine.
On the landing stage of the Sector-Regional Headquarters at Novilan Equivalent, four or
five people were waiting for them. Vall recognized the subchief, Vulthor Tharn, who
introduced another man, in riding boots and a white cloak, as Skordran Kirv. Vall clasped
hands with him warmly.
"Good work, Agent Skordran. You got onto this promptly."
"I tried to, sir. Do you want the dope now? We have half an hour's flight to our spatial
equivalent, and another half hour in transposition."
"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 conveyer head set up about
two hundred miles south of here, which will take you straight through to the plantation."
"Suppose you change now, Dalla," he said. "Subchief, I'd like a word with you privately."
He and Vulthor Tharn excused themselves and walked over to the edge of the landing
stage. The SecReg Subchief was outwardly composed, but Vall sensed that he was
worried and embarrassed.
"Now, what's been done since you got Agent Skordran's report?" Vall asked.
"Well, sir, it seems that this is more serious than we had anticipated. Field Agent
Skordran, who will give you the particulars, says that there is every indication that a large
and well-organized gang of paratemporal criminals, our own people, are at work. He says
that he's found evidence of activities on Fourth Level Kholghoor that don't agree with any
information we have about conditions on that sector."
"Beside transmitting Agent Skordran's report to Dhergabar through the robot
report-system, what have you done about it?"
"I confirmed Agent Skordran in charge of the local investigation, and gave him two
detectives and a psychist, sir. As soon as we could furnish hypno-mech indoctrination in
Kharanda to other psychists, I sent them along. He now has four of them, and eight
detectives. By that time, we had a conveyer head right at this Consolidated Outtime
Foodstuffs plantation."
"Why didn't you just borrow psychists from SecReg for Kholghoor, Eastern India?" Vall
asked. "Subchief Ranthar would have loaned you a few."
"Oh, I couldn't call on another SecReg for men without higher-echelon authorization.

Especially not from another Sector Organization, even another Level Authority," Vulthor
Tharn said. "Beside, it would have taken 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?" he asked.
"Gracious, no!" Vulthor Tharn was scandalized. "I have no authority to tell people of
equal echelon in other Sector and Level organizations what to do. I put my report through
regular channels; it wasn't my place to go outside my own jurisdiction."
And his report had crawled through channels for fourteen hours, Vall thought.
"Well, on my authority, and in the name of Chief Tortha, you message Ranthar Jard at
once; send him every scrap of information you have on the subject, and forward
additional information as it comes in to you. I doubt he'll find anything on any time-line
that's being exploited by any legitimate paratimers. This gang probably work exclusively
on unpenetrated time-lines; this business Skordran Kirv