Astounding Science Fiction, August 1955 (British Edition) — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

TIME CRIME 105 Vall grinned. “‘That was one I'd never thought of,’’ he admitted. “‘The old fox is still the old fox. No, tell them nothing; we’ll just take them along and show them. Oh, and where are Dr. Hadron Dalla and that girl of Salgath rod’s?” “They’re sleeping, now. Rest Room Eighteen.” Dalla and Zinganna were asleep on a big mound of silk cushions in one corner, their glossy black heads close together and Zinganna’s brown arm around Dalla’s white shoulder. Their faces were calmly beautiful in repose, and they smiled slightly, as though they were wandering through a happy dream. For a little while, Vall stood looking at them, then he began whistling softly. On the third or fourth bar, Dalla woke and sat up, waking Zinganna, and blinked at him perplexedly. “What time is it?’’ she asked. *“About 1245,” he told her. “Ohhh! We just got to sleep,” she said. ““We’re both bushed!” “You had a hard time. Feel all right after your narco-hyp, Zinganna?” “It wasn’t so bad, and I had a nice sleep. And Dalla . . . Dr. Hadron, I mean—”’ “Dalla,” Vall’s wife corrected. ‘““Remember what I told you?” “Dalla, then,” Zinganna smiled. ““Dalla gave me some hypno-treatment, too. I don’t feel so badly about Trod, any more.” “Well, look, Zinganna. We’re going to have a man impersonate Council- man Salgath on a telecast. The cosmeticians are making him over now. Would you find it too painful to meet him, and talk to him?” “No, I wouldn’t mind. I can criticize the impersonation; remember, I knew Trod very well. You know, I was his hostess, too. I met many of the people with whom he was associated, and they know me. Would things look more convincing if I appeared on the telecast with your man?” “It certainly would; it would be a great help!’’ he told her enthusiastically. “Maybe you girls ought to get up, now. The telecast isn’t till 1930, but there’s a lot to be done getting ready.” Dalla yawned. ““What I get, trying to be a cop,” she said, then caught the other girl’s hands and rose, pulling her up. ““Come on, Zinna; we have to get to work!”’ _ Vall rose from behind the reading-screen in Ranthar Jard’s office, stretch- ing his arms over his head. For almost an hour, he had sat there pushing buttons and twiddling selector and magnification-adjustment knobs, looking at the pictures the Kholghoor-Nharkan cops had taken with auto-return balls dropped over the spatial equivalent of Sohram. One set of pictures, taken at two thousand feet, showed the central square of the city. The effects of the Croutha sack were plainly visible; so were the captives herded together under guard like cattle. By increasing magnification, he looked at groups of the barbarian conquerors, big men with blond or reddish-brown hair, in loose shirts and baggy trousers and rough cowhide buskins. Many of them wore bowl-shaped helmets, some had shirts of ring-mail, all of them carried long straight swords with cross-hilts, and about half of them had pistols thrust through their belts or muskets slung from their shoulders, | COMIC OOOKS.COM