Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition) — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

12 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION 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, every- body; 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 contribu- tion. 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 it shifted from the ‘general Paratime Building beam to the beam of the Paratime Police landing stage, then it said, “Thank you.” The building below seemed to rotate upward toward them as it settled down. Then the antigray-field snapped off, the cab door popped open, and the cab said: ““Good-by, now. Ride with me again, sometime.” They crossed the landing stage, entered the antigrav shaft, and floated down- ward; at the end of a hallway, below, Vall opened the door of Tortha Karf’s office and ushered her through ahead of him. Tortha Karf, inside the semicircle of his desk, was speaking into a recording phone as they approached. He shut off the machine and waved, a cigarette in his hand. “Come on back and sit down,” he invited. “Be with you in a moment.” Then he switched on the phone again and went on talking—something about prompter evaluation and transmission of reports and less reliance on robot equipment. “‘Sign that up, my personal order, and see it’s transmitted to every- body down to and including Sector Regional Subchief level,” he finished, then hung up the phone and turned to them. “Sorry about this,” he said. “Sit down, if you please. Cigarettes?” /_ - i! TIME CRIME 13 - She shook her head and sat down in one of the chairs behind the desk; she started to relax and then caught herself and sat erect, her hands on her lap. “This won’t interfere with your vacation, Vall,” Tortha Karf was saying. “I just need a little help before you transpose out.” “We have to catch the rocket for Zarabar in an hour and a half,” Dalla reminded him. “Don’t worry about that; if you miss the commercial rocket, our police rockets can give it an hour’s start and pass it before it gets to Zarabar,” Tortha Karf said. Then he turned to Vall. ““Here’s what’s happened,” he said. ‘‘One of our field agents on detached duty as guard captain for Consolidated Outtime Foodstuffs on a fruit plantation in western North America, Third Level Esaron Sector, was looking over a lot of slaves who had been sold to the plantation by a local slave dealer. He heard them talking among themselves—in Kharanda.”’ Dalla caught the significance of that before Vall did. At first, she was puzzled ; then, in spite of herself, she was horrified and angry. Tortha Karf was explaining to Vall just where and on what paratemporal sector Kharanda was spoken. “No possibility that this agent, Skordran Kirv, could have been mistaken. He worked for a while on Kholghoor Sector, himself; knew the language by hypno-mech and by two years’ use,” Tortha Karf was saying. “So he ordered himself back on duty, had the slaves isolated and then the slave dealers arrested, and then transposed to Police Terminal to report. The SecReg Subchief, old Vulthor Tharn, confirmed him in charge at this Esaron Sector plantation, and assigned him a couple of detectives and a psychist.” ““When was this?”’ Vall asked. “Yesterday. One-Five-Nine Day. About 1500 local time.” “Twenty-three hundred Dhergabar time,”’ Vall commented. “Yes. And I just found out about it. Came in in the late morning generalized report-digest; very inconspicuous item, no special urgency symbol or anything. Fortunately, one of the report editors spotted it and messaged Police Terminal for a copy of the original report.”’ “It’s been a long time since we had anything like that,” Vall said, studying the glowing tip of his cigarette, his face wearing the curiously withdrawn “expression of a conscious memory recall. “Fifty years ago; the time that gang kidnaped some girls from Second Level Triplanetary Empire Sector and sold them into the harem of some Fourth Level Indo-Turanian sultan.” ~ “Yes, That was your first independent case, Vall. That was when I began to think you’d really make a cop. One renegade First Level citizen and four or five ServSec Prole hoodlums, with a stolen fifty-foot conveyer. This looks like a rather more ambitious operation.” Dalla got one of her own cigarettes out and lit it. Vall and Tortha Karf were talking cop talk about method of operation and possible size of the gang involved, and why the slaves had been shipped all the way from India to the west coast of North America. ‘Always ready sale for slaves on the Esaron Sector,” Vall was saying. ““And ks.com so many small independent ne EO m 900. wouldn’t be particularly conspicuous. Onis Ke JUUOE