“Smoke one of mine, for a change,” Verkan Vall told him. “I don’t know what’s in yours beside tobacco.” He offered his case and held a light for the prisoner before lighting his own cigarette. “I’m going to be sure you get back to the First Level alive.”
The former Overseer of the Kingdom of Zurb shrugged. “I’m still not talking,” he said.
“Well, we can get it all out of you by narco-hypnosis, anyhow,” Verkan Vall told him. “Besides, we got that man of yours who was here at the temple when we came in. He’s being given a full treatment, as a presumed outtime native found in possession of First Level weapons. If you talk now it’ll go easier with you.”
The prisoner dropped the cigarette on the floor and tramped it out.
“Anything you cops get out of me, you’ll have to get the hard way,” he said. “I have friends on the First Level who’ll take care of me.”
“I doubt that. They’ll have their hands full taking care of themselves, after this gets out.” Verkan Vall turned to the two in the black robes. “Either of you want to say anything?” When they shook their heads, he nodded to a group of his policemen; they were hustled into the conveyer. “Take them to the First Level terminal and hold them till I come in. I’ll be along with the next conveyer load.”
The conveyer flashed and vanished. Brannad Klav stared for a moment at the circle of concrete floor from whence it had disappeared. Then he turned to Verkan Vall.
“I still can’t believe it,” he said. “Why, those fellows were First Level paratimers. So was that priest, Ghromdur: the one you rayed.”
“Yes, of course. They worked for your rivals, the Fourth Level Mineral Products Syndicate; the outfit that was trying to get your Proto-Aryan Sector fissionables franchise away from you. They operate on this sector already; have the petroleum franchise for the Chuldun country, east of the Caspian Sea. They export to some of these internal-combustion-engine sectors, like Europo-American. You know, most of the wars they’ve been fighting, lately, on the Europo-American Sector have been, at least in part, motivated by rivalry for oil fields. But now that the Europo-Americans have begun to release nuclear energy, fissionables have become more important than oil. In less than a century, it’s predicted that atomic energy will replace all other forms of power. Mineral Products Syndicate wanted to get a good source of supply for uranium, and your Proto-Aryan Sector franchise was worth grabbing.
“I had considered something like this as a possibility when Stranor, here, mentioned that tularemia was normally unknown in Eurasia on this sector. That epidemic must have been started by imported germs. And I knew that Mineral Products has agents at the court of the Chuldun emperor, Chombrog: they have to, to protect their oil wells on his eastern frontiers. I spent most of last night checking up on some stuff by video-transcription from the Paratime Commission’s microfilm library at Dhergabar. I found out, for one thing, that while there is a King Kurchuk of Zurb on every timeline for a hundred parayears on either side of this one, this is the only timeline on which he married a Princess Darith of Chuldun, and it’s the only timeline on which there is any trace of a Chuldun scribe named Labdurg.
“That’s why I went to all the trouble of having that Yat-Zar plated with collapsed nickel. If there were disguised paratimers among the Muz-Azin party at Kurchuk’s court, I expected one of them to try to blast our idol when we brought it into the palace. I was watching Ghromdur and Labdurg in particular; as soon as Ghromdur used his blaster, I needled him. After that, it was easy.”
“Was that why you insisted on sending that automatic viewer on ahead?”
“Yes. There was a chance that they might have planted a bomb in the House of Yat-Zar, here. I knew they’d either do that or let the place entirely alone. I suppose they were so confident of getting away with this that they didn’t want to damage the conveyer or the conveyer chamber. They expected to use them, themselves, after they took over your company’s franchise.”
“Well, what’s going to be done about it by the Commission?” Brannad Klav wanted to know.
“Plenty. The syndicate will probably lose their paratime license; any of its officials who had guilty knowledge of this will be dealt with according to law. You know, this was a pretty nasty business.”
“You’re telling me!” Stranor Sleth exclaimed. “Did you get a look at those whips they were going to use on our people? Pointed iron barbs a quarter-inch long braided into them, all over the lash-ends!”
“Yes. Any punitive action you’re thinking about taking on these priests of Muz-Azin—the natives, I mean—will be ignored on the First Level. And that reminds me: you’d better work out a line of policy, pretty soon.”
“Well, as for the priests and the torturers, I think I’ll tell Yorzuk to have them sold to the Bhunguns, to the east. They’re always in the market for galley slaves,” Stranor Sleth said. He turned to Brannad Klav. “And I’ll want six gold crowns made up, as soon as possible. Strictly Hulgun design, with Yat-Zar religious symbolism, very rich and ornate, all slightly different. When I give Kurchuk absolution, I’ll crown him at the altar in the name of Yat-Zar. Then I’ll invite in the other five Hulgun kings, lecture them on their religious duties, make them confess their secret doubts, forgive them, and crown them, too. From then on, they can all style themselves as ruling by the will of Yat-Zar.”
“And from then on, you’ll have all of them eating out of your hand,” Verkan Vall concluded. “You know, this will probably go down in Hulgun history as the Reformation of Ghullam the Holy. I’ve always wondered whether the theory of the divine right of kings was invented by the kings, to establish their authority over the
