“Then why would they let a thing like this get out?” Salgath Trod inquired.
“Somebody slipped up and moved a lot of slaves onto an exploited Esaron timeline. Or, rather, Consolidated Outtime Foodstuffs established a plantation on a timeline they were shipping slaves to. Parenthetically, that’s what really did happen; the mistake our people made was in not closing out that timeline as soon as Consolidated Foodstuffs moved in,” the young man said.
“So, this Skordran Kirv, who is a dumb boy who doesn’t know what the score is, found these slaves and blatted about it to this Golzan Doth, and Golzan reported it to his company, and it couldn’t be hushed up, so now Tortha Karf is trying to scare the public with ghost stories about a gigantic paratemporal conspiracy, to get more appropriations and more power.”
“How long do you think I’d get away with that?” Salgath Trod demanded. “I can only stretch parliamentary immunity so far. Sooner or later, I’d have to make formal charges to a special judicial committee, and that would mean narco-hypnosis, and then it would all come out.”
“You’ll have proof,” the young man said. “We’ll produce a couple of these Kharandas whom Verkan Vall didn’t get hold of. Under narco-hypnosis, they’ll testify that they saw a couple of Wizard Traders take their robes off. Under the robes were Paratime Police uniforms. Do you follow me?”
Salgath Trod made a noise of angry disgust.
“That’s ridiculous! I suppose these Kharandas will be given what is deludedly known as memory obliteration, and a set of pseudo-memories; how long do you think that would last? About three ten-days. There is no such thing as memory obliteration; there’s memory-suppression, and pseudo-memory overlay. You can’t get behind that with any quickie narco-hypnosis in the back room of any police post, I’ll admit that,” he said. “But a skilled psychist can discover, inside of five minutes, when a narco-hypnotized subject is carrying a load of false memories, and in time, and not too much time, all that top layer of false memories and blockages can be peeled off. And then where would we be?”
“Now wait a minute, Councilman. This isn’t just something I dreamed up,” the visitor said. “This was decided upon at the top. At the very top.”
“I don’t care whose idea it was,” Salgath Trod snapped. “The whole thing is idiotic, and I won’t have anything to do with it.”
The visitor’s face froze. All the respect vanished from his manner and tone; his voice was like ice cakes grating together in a winter river.
“Look, Salgath; this is an Organization order,” he said. “You don’t refuse to obey Organization orders, and you don’t quit the Organization. Now get smart, big boy; do what you’re told to.” He took a spool of record tape from his pocket and laid it on the desk. “Outline for your speech; put it in your own words, but follow it exactly.” He stood watching Salgath Trod for a moment. “I won’t bother telling you what’ll happen to you if you don’t,” he added. “You can figure that out for yourself.”
With that, he turned and went out the private door. For a while, Salgath Trod sat staring after him. Once he put his hand out toward the spool, then jerked it back as though the thing were radioactive. Once he looked at the clock; it was just 1600.
The green aircar settled onto the landing stage; Verkan Vall, on the front seat beside the driver, opened the door.
“Want me to call for you later, Assistant Verkan?” the driver asked.
“No thank you, Drenth. My wife and I are going to a dinner-party, and we’ll probably go night-clubbing afterward. Tomorrow morning, all the anti-Management commentators will be yakking about my carousing around when I ought to be battling the Slave Trust. No use advertising myself with an official car, and giving them a chance to add, ‘at public expense.’ ”
“Well, have some fun while you can,” the driver advised, reaching for the car-radio phone. “Want me to check you in here, sir?”
“Yes, if you will. Thank you. Drenth.”
Kandagro, his human servant, admitted him to the apartment six floors down.
“Mistress Dalla is dressing,” he said. “She asked me to tell you that you are invited to dinner, this evening, with Thalvan Dras at his apartment.”
Vall nodded. “Ill talk to her about it now,” he said. “Lay out my dress uniform: short jacket, boots and breeches, and needler.”
“Yes, master: I’ll go lay out your things and get your bath ready.”
The servant turned and went into the alcove which gave access to the dressing rooms, turning right into Vall’s. Vall followed him, turning left into his wife’s.
“Oh, Dalla!” he called.
“In here!” her voice came out of her bathroom.
He passed through the dressing room, to find her stretched on a plastic-sheeted couch, while her maid, Rendarra, was rubbing her body vigorously with some pungent-smelling stuff about the consistency of machine-grease. Her face was masked in the stuff, and her hair was covered with an elastic cap. He had always suspected that beauty was the real feminine religion, from the willingness of its devotees to submit to martyrdom for it. She wiggled a hand at him in greeting.
“How did it go?” she asked.
“So-so. I organized myself a sort of miniature police force within a police force and I have liaison officers in every organization down to Sector Regional so that I can be informed promptly in case anything new turns up anywhere. What’s been happening on Home Timeline? I picked up a news-summary at Paratime Police Headquarters; it seems that a lot more stuff has leaked out. Kholghoor Sector, Wizard Traders and all. How’d it happen?”
Dalla rolled over to allow Rendarra to
