“I’ll take care of the Home Timeline end of it; as soon as we get you an impersonator, you go to work with him. Now, let’s see whom we can depend on to help us with this. Lovranth Rolk, of course; Home Timeline section of the Paratime Code Enforcement Division. And—”
Verkan Vall and Dalla and Tortha Karf and four or five others looked across the desk and to the end of the room as the telecast screen broke into a shifting light-pattern and then cleared. The face of the announcer appeared; a young woman.
“And now, we bring you the statement which Chief Tortha of the Paratime Police has promised for this time. This portion of the program was audiovisually recorded at Paratime Police Headquarters earlier this evening.”
Tortha Karf’s face appeared on the screen. His voice began an announcement of how Executive Councilman Salgath Trod had called him by visiphone, admitting to complicity in the recently-discovered paratemporal slave-trade.
“Here is a recording of Councilman Salgath’s call to me from his apartment to my office at 1945 this evening.”
The screen-image shattered into light-shards and rebuilt itself: Salgath Trod, at his desk in the library of his apartment, the brandy-goblet and the needler within reach, appeared. He began to speak: from time to time the voice of Tortha Karf interrupted, questioning or prompting him.
“You understand that this confession renders you liable to psycho-rehabilitation?” Tortha Karf asked.
Yes, Councilman Salgath understood that.
“And you agree to come voluntarily to Paratime Police Headquarters, and you will voluntarily undergo narco-hypnotic interrogation?”
Yes, Salgath Trod agreed to that.
“I am now terminating the playback of Councilman Salgath’s call to me,” Tortha Karf said, reappearing on the screen. “At this point Councilman Salgath began making a statement about his criminal activities, which we have on record. Because he named a number of his criminal associates, whom we have no intention of warning, this portion of Councilman Salgath’s call cannot at this time be made public. We have no intention of having any of these suspects escape, or of giving their associates an opportunity to murder them to prevent their furnishing us with additional information. Incidentally, there was an attempt, made on the landing stage of Paratime Police Headquarters, to murder Councilman Salgath, when he was brought here guarded by Paratime Police officers—”
He went on to give a colorful and, as far as possible, truthful, account of the attack by the two pseudo-policemen and their pseudo-prisoner. As he told it, however, all three had been killed before they could accomplish their purpose, one of them by Salgath Trod himself.
The image of Tortha Karf was replaced by a view of the three assassins lying on the landing stage. They all looked dead, even the one who wasn’t; there was nothing to indicate that he was merely drugged. Then, one after another, their faces were shown in closeup, while Tortha Karf asked for close attention and memorization.
“We believe that these men were Fifth Level Proles; we think that they were under hypnotic influence or obeying posthypnotic commands when they made their suicidal attack. If any of you have ever seen any of these men before, it is your duty to inform the Paratime Police.”
That ended it. Tortha Karf pressed a button in front of him and the screen went dark. The spectators relaxed.
“Well! Nothing like being sincere with the public, is there?” Della commented. “I’ll remember this the next time I tune in a Management public statement.”
“In about five minutes,” one of the bureau-chiefs, said, “all hell is going to break loose. I think the whole thing is crazy!”
“I hope you have somebody who can give a convincing impersonation,” Lovranth Rolk said.
“Yes. A field agent named Kostran Galth,” Tortha Karf said. “We ran the personal description cards for the whole Force through the machine; Kostran checked to within one-twentieth of one percent; he’s on Police Terminal, now, coming by rocket from Ravvanan Equivalent. We ought to have the whole thing ready for telecast by 1730 tomorrow.”
“He can’t learn to imitate Salgath’s voice convincingly in that time, with all the work the cosmeticians’ll have to be doing on him,” Dalla said.
“Make up a tape of Salgath’s own voice, out of that pile of recordings we got at his apartment, and what we can get out of the news file.” Vall said. “We have phoneticists who can split syllables and splice them together. Kostran will deliver his speech in dumb-show, and we’ll dub the sound in and telecast them as one. I’ve messaged PolTerm to get to work on that; they can start as soon as we have the speech written.”
“The more it succeeds now, the worse the blowup will be when we finally have to admit that Salgath was killed here tonight,” the Chief Inter-officer Coordinator, Zostha Olv said. “We’d better have something to show the public to justify that.”
“Yes, we had,” Tortha Karf agreed. “Vall, how about the Kholghoor Sector operation. How far’s Ranthar Jard gotten toward locating one of those Wizard Trader timelines?”
“Not very far,” Vall admitted. “He has it pinned down to the sub-sector, but the belt seems to be one we haven’t any information at all for. Never been any legitimate penetration by paratimers. He has his own hagiologists, and a couple borrowed from Outtime Religious Institute; they’ve gotten everything the slaves can give them on that. About the only thing to do is start random observation with boomerang-balls.”
“Over about a hundred thousand timelines,” Zostha Olv scoffed. He was an old man, even for his long-lived race; he had a thin nose and a narrow, bitter, mouth. “And what will he look for?”
“Croutha with guns.” Tortha Karf told him, then turned to Vall. “Can’t he narrow it more than that? What have his experts been getting out of those slaves?”
“That I don’t know, to date.” Vall looked at the clock. “I’ll find out, though; I’ll transpose to Police Terminal and call him up. And Skordran Kirv. No. Vulthor Tharn; it’d hurt the old fellow’s feelings if I bypassed him
